Talk:NISSAN SILVIA (S15) R3 Spec Championship/@comment-26845160-20171206075133/@comment-27123099-20171207171408

To the Random User above me:

I suppose that's the beauty of science, it doesn't require your understanding of it in order for it to work.

Essentially, that quote you mentioned amounts to a layman's description of what is occurring. Whenever you see description of the downforce present on a car, it's given in lbs or kgs. Where do you think this "weight" is coming from? Is the car itself getting heavier as it goes faster? No, of course not. It's the weight of the air pushing down on strategic portions of the bodywork which creates the downforce. This is caused by a difference in the amount of air flowing over one part of the car compared to what's flowing underneath. Essentially the opposite of what makes a plane fly. Similar to how a car doesn't itself get heavier at high speeds, neither does an airplane get lighter in order to fly.

This is the science of aerodynamics at work. Crafting the design of the bodywork and various fins, wings, winglets, diffusers, splitters, etc. which push the air where the designers want it in order to produce the desired effect.

Here's a link with some simple explanation of the forces at hand. It's using NASCAR as an examples, but the principals remain the same regardless.

https://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-racing/nascar/history/nascar-downforce.htm