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SAE TECHNICAL
PAPER SERIES 2000-01-0872

The Aerodynamic Stability of a Le Mans

Prototype Race Car Under Off-Design
Pitch Conditions
R. G. Dominy, A. Ryan and D. B. Sims-Williams
University of Durham

Reprinted From: Vehicle Aerodynamics

(SP–1524)

SAE 2000 World Congress

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March 6-9, 2000

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2000-01-0872

The Aerodynamic Stability of a Le Mans Prototype

Race Car Under Off-Design Pitch Conditions

R. G. Dominy, A. Ryan and D. B. Sims-Williams

University of Durham

Copyright © 2000 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.

ABSTRACT manufacturers to undertake thorough wind tunnel test

programmes during the design and development stages
The current generation of sports racing cars such as of their race-cars the information that is obtained is rarely,
those competing under the Le Mans “LM”P and “LM”GTP if ever, released for publication. Katz [1] provides force
regulations are particularly sensitive to the pitch of the and pressure data for a sports car from a limited range of
vehicle. This is a consequence of the low ground clear- test configurations but the information dates back to the
ances that must be adopted to maximise the benefits that IMSA regulations that were in force during the early
can be gained from ground effect and of the very large 1980’s which bear little relation to those in force today. In
floor plan area of these cars. To achieve optimum corner- the absence of relevant data it is difficult to analyse accu-
ing and straight line performance the suspension charac- rately the various factors that contribute to accidents of
teristics are often tuned to the aerodynamic forces in this kind or to assess their relative importance. In addition
order to reduce the pitch and hence the drag of the vehi- to the steady state aerodynamic characteristics of the car
cle at high speeds whilst retaining relatively high down- those factors may include aerodynamic perturbations
force when cornering. arising from the close proximity of other vehicles and
other external influences such as track surface contours
A series of accidents at the 1999 Le Mans 24-hour race
and the associated dynamic response of the suspension
have highlighted the potential instability of these vehicles
and tyres. The aerodynamic configuration of the cars is
which resulted in the catastrophic ‘take-off’ of one of the
largely dictated by the technical regulations which are
“LM”GTP cars during the race and others during qualify-
governed by the race organisers, the Automobile Club de
ing and the pre-race ‘warm-up’. The data presented here
l’Ouest [2]. A summary of those applying to “LM”GTP cat-
have been extracted from a detailed experimental study
egory is given in table 1.
of a typical “LM”GTP car under design and off-design
pitch conditions including extreme cases of nose-up
pitching moment to assess the onset of instability i.e rota- Table 1. Full scale vehicle parameters
tion leading to take-off. Additional data are presented to Max. length 4.90 m
demonstrate the influence of possible regulation changes Max. width 2.00 m
upon these parameters.
Min. weight 900 kg
Max. fuel capacity 90 litres
INTRODUCTION
Max. engine 8000cc ( atmospheric )
The 1999 Le Mans 24-hour race will long be remembered capacity 4000cc ( turbocharged )
for the spectacular take-off and somersaults of the Mer- Undertray Flat over the full width of the floor
cedes CLR driven by Peter Dumbreck. This and two bewteen the axles.
almost identical incidents, one during qualifying and the
Flat, inclined rear diffuser which
other during the morning ‘warm-up’ were unusual but by
must not rise more than 150mm
no means unique. Although the problems encountered by
above the flat chassis floor plane.
the Mercedes team clearly demonstrated that there was
a problem with their particular design other similar acci- Wings One, single element rear aerofoil
dents such as one involving the Porsche 911-GT1 of Yan- which must not project beyond the
nick Dalmas at Road Atlanta only months before suggest perimeter of the bodywork.
that the potential for take-off is much more widespread “LM”GTP is one of two categories that compete for over-
and may be inherent in GT and sports car configurations. all victory, the other being the Le Mans Prototype (“LM”P)
Although it is usual for all of the major racing sports car class. The regulations are designed to allow the cars to

1
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compete on equal terms and the most obvious visible dif-
ference between them is the open top nature of the
“LM”P’s compared to the usually closed “LM”GTP’s. The
accidents at Le Mans in 1999 and at Road Atlanta the
previous year both occurred with closed “LM”GTP cars
and for that reason this study has focused upon vehicles
of that type. At this stage there is no evidence to indicate
whether or not cars conforming to the “LM”P regulations
are equally prone to instability.
This study was undertaken firstly to provide a compre-
hensive map of the aerodynamic characteristics of a
generic Le Mans “LM”GTP race car with a particular
emphasis upon its behaviour at extreme off-design, nose-
up attitudes and secondly to analyse the effect possible
regulation changes upon the stability of the vehicle.
EXPERIMENT
EQUIPMENT – The tests were performed on a 1/5th
scale model of a typical race car conforming to the 1999
Le Mans regulations for “LM”GTP cars. The model was
based upon the 1998 Mercedes CLR but the geometry
was only an approximate representation and the results
should not be regarded as providing an accurate reflec-
tion of the performance of that particular vehicle. The
upper body was manufactured from polycarbonate by
GM-modellsport. The design of the undertray was con-
sistent with the race regulations and included maximum
allowable diffusion behind the rear axle and typical
under-nose diffusion. Rotating wheels were manufac-
tured from lightweight, rigid polyurethane foam and the
exposed surfaces were sealed. They were attached to
the model using trailing arms with the links set in the hor-
izontal plane to eliminate errors in the lift measurements
caused by the resolution of the drag forces acting along
the trailing arms. All of the measurements were made
using the Durham University moving ground plane.
Figure 1. The wind tunnel model
The cooling flow paths on full scale vehicles are highly
complex and vary considerably from one vehicle to
another. No attempt was made to model those cooling
flows since accurate geometrical data were not available
and the focus of this research programme was upon the
global aerodynamic performance trends of a generic
vehicle and not upon detail that is specific to a particular
car. It was not considered that the global trends would be
greatly influenced by the cooling flows although they
undoubtedly have significance in terms of the precise lift,
drag and centre of pressure of a vehicle.
2
The forces were measured using a 6-component, elec-
tronic force balance that was designed and manufactured
at Durham University. The balance was mounted inside
the model ( figure 1 ) which was attached to the chassis
via a hinge arrangement that allowed the pitch of the car
to be adjusted without changing the inclination of the bal-
ance.
Wake surveys were performed using a 5-hole pressure
probe which was mounted on a computer-controlled, 4-
axis ( 3 linear and 1 angular ) traverse system.
EXPERIMENTAL METHOD – All measurements were
made at a nominal wind tunnel velocity of 21 m/s giving a
Reynolds number ( based on length ) of 1.33 x 10 6. For
each measurement the moving ground plane was
matched to the airspeed to an accuracy of better that
0.1m/s ( ~0.5% ) under the control of the data system.
Under-belt suction was used for all of the measurements.
The 5-hole pressure probe that was used for the wake
surveys was of the forward-facing pyramid type (as clas-
sified by Dominy and Hodson [3]) with a wedge angle of
90° and a width of 3.5mm. A steady state calibration of
the 5-hole probe was performed at constant velocity over
a range of pitch and yaw angles from -40° to +40° in 2.5°
increments and these data were stored as a look-up
table. Data were collected from one half of the wake only
since by assuming symmetry about the wake centre it
was possible to achieve higher resolution within an
acceptable time scale. At each of the 210 positions within
the half-wake the pressures were averaged over 2048
samples. Measurements were made at two downstream
traverse planes. The first ( plane 1 ) was located at x/L =
0.156 downstream from the rearmost point of the car and
the second ( plane 2 ) was located further downstream at
x/L = 0.313, where x is the axial distance and L is the
overall length of the car. Although the upstream traverse
provides valuable information regarding the development
of the wake flow its location is not representative of typi-
cal vehicle spacings during slipsteaming and overtaking
manouvres and the data are not included here. More
detailed information concerning the slipstreaming tests
has been presented by Dominy et al [5].
Data were sampled using an Amplicon PC30-PGH card
which has a clock speed of 2Mhz and allows logging of 8,
12bit differential channels. The card was driven by an
MS-DOS based PC which also controlled the traverse
gear used for probe positioning and the road speed. A
logging frequency of 800hz per channel was used and a
set of matched 250hz second-order analogue filters pro-
vided anti-aliasing. Pressure measurements were made
with a set of identical Sensor Technics 103LP10D pres-
sure transducers which were calibrated simultaneously
against a silicon fluid micro-manometer.
The datum configuration for the car was chosen following
a preliminary performance mapping exercise which
allowed an optimum aerodynamic configuration to be
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established within prescribed limits of lift, drag and centre
of pressure. In particular it was ensured that the centre of
pressure was located to achieve a reasonably neutral
understeer/oversteer cornering characteristic but with a
small, rearward bias to allow for the changes in pitch and
ride height that occur at the high straight line speeds that
are achieved at Le Mans. An appropriate centre of pres-
sure was determined using the established laptime pre-
diction method of Dominy [4]. In view of the nature of the
accidents in the 1999 Le Mans 24-hour race particular
attention was paid to the lift characteristics under nose-
up pitch conditions.
Measurements were also made when the model lay in
the wake created by a similar, upstream vehicle. The data
presented here correspond to a spacing between the
vehicles of 0.5 vehicle lengths ( i.e. x/L = 0.5 ).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
THE DATUM CONDITION – The configuration that was
chosen as a datum condition is described in table 2
which also provides details of the forces that are gener-
ated.
Table 2. The Datum Configuration
Ground clearance (front axle, mm @ 31.5
full scale )
Ground clearance ( rear axle, mm @ 64.2
full scale )
Rear wing incidence ( degrees ) 2.2
Pitch angle ( degrees ) -0.7
Downforce ( N @ 320 kph, full scale ) 8887
Drag ( N @ 320 kph, full scale ) 4475
% Lift acting on front axle 42.0%
The force data are presented in terms of the forces acting
upon a full scale vehicle at a velocity of 320 kph ( ~200
mph or 89 m/s ) and not in coefficient form. This is done
for two related reasons. The first is that race car con-
structors are interested primarily in absolute forces and
the units that have been used here are those that have
been adopted widely throughout the industry. The second
is that many of the changes made to race cars result in
significant changes in the frontal area which are not eas-
ily measurable and which therefore make the use and
interpretation of traditional coefficients difficult. These
forces are reasonably representative of a generic Le
Mans prototype vehicle conforming to the closed
“LM”GTP regulations and configured for relatively low
drag and downforce as would be appropriate for the Le
Mans circuit.
PITCH EFFECTS – Figure 2 demonstrates how the
downforce changes as the vehicle is pitched about a fixed
point. For these measurements the pitch was changed by
rotating the car about the balance/model attachment
pivot which was located just behind the wheelbase centre
3
at a point close to the centre of gravity of the full scale car
( figure 1 ). Pitching about this point corresponds approx-
imately to the conditions that occur under braking and
acceleration as the car pitches about its centre of gravity.
Figure 2. The effect of chassis pitch upon downforce at
constant central pivot height (+ve pitch = nose-up )
For each data point shown in figure 2 the rear wing angle
was held at a constant incidence of -1.5 degrees relative
to the flat undertray. Changing the attitude of the vehicle
from +0.4 degrees ( nose up ) to -0.7 degrees ( nose
down ) shows an almost linear increase in the total down-
force generated which corresponds to a rate of 4400 N/
degree. At the negative pitch angles that are usually
experienced when racing, typically in the range 0° to -
0.7°, the rate at which the downforce changes with pitch
is almost identical at the front and the rear. However, the
percentage of the total downforce that acts on the front
axle increases from 38.7% at 0° pitch to 41.8% when the
pitch is set to -0.7° , reflecting a forward movement of the
centre of pressure. Pitching the car nose down about a
point between the axles leads to the reduction of the
throat area ( the minimum cross sectional area that
occurs beneath the car at or near the nose ) with an
associated increase of the cross sectional area beneath
the rear of the car. More severe diffusion rates therefore
occur along the entire length of the undertray down-
stream from the throat and the primary effect is to accel-
erate the flow beneath the front of the car to higher
velocities and lower pressures leading to increased
downforce generation. The total downforce acting upon
the car rises from 6476N to 8887N over the same pitch
angle increase which corresponds to a 37% downforce
increase. At nose-up attitudes the gradient of the rear
axle downforce ~ pitch curve becomes steeper whilst at
the front axle the gradient is reduced. This corresponds
to a considerable forward movement of the centre of
pressure ( 46% acting on the front axle ) but with greatly
reduced downforce. Around corners these dramatic
changes in the centre of pressure would be unacceptable
because of their strong influence upon the understeer/
oversteer characteristic of the car and in the light of this
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pitch sensitivity it is not surprising that these cars fre-
quently operate with very stiff front springs to minimise
ride height changes at the front of the car. Front wheel
rates in excess of 175 N/m ( 1550 lbs/inch ) are com-
mon. Because of the long, fast straights that are charac-
teristic of the Le Mans circuit there is a strong incentive to
minimise the drag forces that act upon the race cars. This
can often be achieved by reducing the pitch of the cars
and because of the need for stiff front suspensions the
most common solution is to operate with soft rear
springs.
Figure 3 presents the corresponding results for the case
where the pitch is achieved by the rotation of the car
about its rear axle. This approximates to the car passing
over the brow of a hill and is more akin to the situation
that may lead potentially to take-off. The range of inci-
dences was therefore extended to +2.5 degrees (figure 4)
which lies considerably beyond the usual operating
envelope.
Figure 3. The effect of chassis pitch upon downforce
when pivoted about the rear axle
The influence of pitch upon downforce is very similar to
that observed previously and the approximate linearity of
the downforce ~ pitch curve is maintained throughout
most of the very considerable pitch range.
Figure 4. The model at +2.5 degrees ( maximum )
incidence
The greater distance between the undertray and the road
surface under these conditions reduces the forces
induced by ground effect and the gradient of the curve is
therefore reduced relative to the case of rotation about
the centre of the vehicle ( ~3000N/degree c.f. 4400N/
4
degree ). Not until the nose-up pitch angle reaches an
extreme value of +2.25 degrees does the vehicle begin to
create aerodynamic lift which suggests that aerodynamic
forces alone are insufficient to lead to take-off since the
entire weight of the car is still acting downwards. How-
ever, consideration of the overall forces may be mislead-
ing. Figure 4 also shows clearly that the front axle
experiences a lifting force at an attitude of only +0.7
degrees. A further increase to +2.2 degrees generates a
front axle lift that exceeds the front axle weight (approxi-
mately 3600N) which is sufficient to pivot the nose
upwards about the rear axle. By comparison the rear
downforce remains almost constant throughout the entire
attitude range.
DYNAMIC STABILITY – The accident involving the
Dumbreck Mercedes CLR at the 1999 Le Mans 24-hour
race occurred soon after the car passed over the crest of
a hill whilst following closely behind another car. Wright
[6] has described the factors that influence the behaviour
of a car as it crests the brow of a hill. If the curvature of
the track surface is high the inertia of the car prevents it
from accurately following the track contour and the nose
of the car will rise up on the suspension leading to an
increase in the front ground clearance and an effective
change of the pitch attitude of the car. For a race car that
is dependent upon ground effect for the generation of
downforce this will result in a momentary loss of down-
force. The precise magnitude of the downforce reduction
will depend upon the design and operating point of the
particular car but the qualitative behaviour will be much
as described above. Although the car does not precisely
follow the road surface as it moves on its suspension it
will nevertheless follow an arc that has a radius that is
comparable to that defined by the road surface and it will
therefore experience a transient, upward centrifugal
force. It is estimated that the brow at the start of the
Dumbreck accident has a radius of approximately 1000m
and simple calculations ( mv2/r ) show that the accelera-
tion experienced by the car reaches almost 0.8g. This is
sufficient to reduce the effective weight of the car to only
2000N and the effective weight acting on the front axle to
only 900N ( assuming a typical 45/55 % front to rear
weight distribution ). The vehicle attitude required to
achieve this front axle lifting force is only +1° ( figure 3 ).
Most “LM”GTP designs are designed to operate at nega-
tive attitudes at all times and it is unlikely that the +1°
threshold will be approached. However, there is clear
photographic evidence that, probably uniquely, the Mer-
cedes is allowed to operate at small nose-up attitudes [7]
and would therefore appear to run with less of a safety
margin. Another potentially influential factor is the addi-
tional rise of the nose due to spring extension as the load
upon the suspension is momentarily reduced when the
car passes over the brow of the hill. Wright [6] in his
review of the Dumbreck accident also describes the
effect of a local bump upon the car as distinguished from
the much longer wavelength undulation that has been
considered above. He argues that the excitation of the
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suspension together with the spring-damper characteris-

tics of the suspension and of the tyres is sufficient to gen-
erate pitch amplitudes of as much as 2°. Some witnesses
to the accident are reported to have observed that the car
rode up on the kerb immediately before the accident so
Wright’s comments could have direct relevence.

SLIPSTREAMING – Another potential influence upon the

Dumbreck accident was the presence of another vehicle
approximately one car length ahead. The influence of the
wake from an upstream vehicle is less easy to analyse.
As a first approximation the following car can be consid-
ered to operate simply at a reduced relative dynamic
head. However the wake from a race car may be
expected to be highly complex including upwash, down-
wash and lateral velocity components which may locally Figure 5. Dynamic head contours in the near wake
be very intense in the regions of highest vorticity such as ( x = 0.313 L )
those associated with rear wing tip flows. In the absence
of published data relating to the wake structures of con-
temporary sports racing cars a detailed wake survey has
been performed behind this model. Dynamic head con-
tours derived from area traverses at a plane 0.313 car
lengths downstream are presented in figure 5. It should
be noted that the rolling road extended only to 0.07 car
lengths downstream of the model so some error would be
expected to be present in the near floor measurements at
the traverse plane as a consequence of the growth of a
new ground boundary layer . Figure 5 shows the
recorded dynamic head pressure contours at the traverse Figure 6. Secondary Velocity vectors in the near wake
plane. It should be noted that the wake flow was only ( x = 0.313 L )
measured to one side of the vehicle’s centre line and that
the apparently complete, symmetrical wake that is pre- As expected, the most intense zones within the wake cor-
sented here was generated by mirroring the data to the respond to the stagnating regions such as those immedi-
unmeasured side. An outline of the vehicle surface has ately behind the bluff, rear body sections and to the
been superimposed on the contours to assist the analy- boundary layer flows that have been generated over the
sis of the wake flow and the corresponding secondary upper bodywork and beneath the chassis. The energy
velocity vectors are also shown ( figure 6 ). Two distinct loss above the car may be attributed to the supporting
pairs of vortices are clearly visible. The upper pair of vor- strut. An integration of the dynamic head has been per-
tices ( z/W=0.47, y/W=± 0.48 ) were generated at the formed over the central zone of the wake which is defined
wing tips whilst the lower pair of vortices ( z/W=0.34, y/ by a box that has the same width and height as the car
W=± 0.30 ) are created by the inflow at the rear of the itself. This provides an estimate of the dynamic head that
car. A strong upwash is evident about the centre line of would be experienced by a second car following directly
the car. behind the first. In this test the integrated dynamic head
was found to fall to only 39.4% of the free stream value
which may be expected to lead to a downforce reduction
of 3550N for the following car. This figure may only be
regarded as an approximation but it provides a helpful
indication of the effect of slipstreaming. In practice the
downstream mixing of the wake would be expected to
result in an greater influence upon the front of the follow-
ing car than upon the rear. Direct force measurements

5
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have also been made when a second model was located
directly upstream from the instrumented vehicle. The
second car was positioned 0.5 lengths ahead of the test
car. It should be noted that the leading car was similar to
but not identical to the primary test car and that it was
mounted above a fixed ground board so the wake struc-
ture will have differed from that of the test car. The mea-
surements reveal an overall downforce reduction of 31%
which is less that the reduction implied from the dynamic
head integration. This would be explained in part by the
greater vehicle separation for the force measurements
which would lead to the following vehicle experiencing a
less intense wake. However, the figure derived from the
integration must be viewed with considerable caution
since it is very sensitive to the area over which the inte-
gration is performed. Increasing the integration area by
50% raises the averaged dynamic head value from 0.394
to 0.536 which is much closer to the value required to
match the force measurements.
In terms of take-off stability these results imply that in
pure aerodynamic terms there is no reason why a slip-
streaming car should be any more prone to take-off than
when in free air. The reduction in downforce that is
recorded at nose-down attitudes as a consequence of
the reduced dynamic head would be expected to be
mirrored by a reduction of front lift under extreme nose-
up conditions. Unfortunately there was not sufficient time
within the test programme to allow the downstream car to
be tested at an extreme nose-up condition when lying in
the wake of the second car but on the basis of effective
dynamic head considerations alone the lift force would be
expected to reduce. However, it should be noted that
wake flows are notoriously unsteady and that unsteadi-
ness may exaggerate the contribution of the other
dynamic influences that have been described above in
terms of the overall dynamic stability. The unsteadiness
in the wake has not yet been measured.
POTENTIAL REGULATION CHANGES. – The results
that have been presented here do not provide an ‘instant
solution’ that would allow the governing body to imple-
ment rule changes that could eliminate the potential for
accidents such as this to be repeated but they do add to
our insight into the problems. One widely suggested
change has been to implement regulations to further
reduce the downforce of the cars in a similar manner to
those adopted in Formula 1. However, the analyses pre-
sented here, albeit highly simplified, suggest that what is
required is more downforce, not less in order to counter
the effects induced by track undulations. Reducing the
downforce would simply reduce the largest single force
that is available to prevent the initial lifting of the nose.
A better solution may be to limit the length of the nose
ahead of the front axle. The nose of the Mercedes CLR is
particularly long at approximately 1.1m in comparison
with its competitors such as the Audi R8R ( 0.9m ) and
the BMW ( 0.83m ). This may be coincidental, but there
6
are logical reasons why nose length could be influential.
The first is that the relatively hard front wheel rates and
soft rear rates adopted by most competitors allow the
cars to pivot about the front axle on bumpy surfaces. With
a short nose the change in ride height at the very front of
the car is proportionately reduced as the rear rises and
falls resulting in reduced throat area change and hence in
reduced pitch sensitivity. A second benefit is the small but
potentially significant reduction in the overturning
moment about the rear axle should the nose lift. When
adopting a shorter nose it is necessary to either increase
the downforce generated at the front of the car or to
reduce the rear downforce in order to maintain an accept-
able centre of pressure. In practice the former will usually
lead to better laptimes even at the high speed Le Mans
circuit but of greater significance in the context of this
study is the greater downward force at the front of the car
which reduces the risk of take-off. One means of increas-
ing front end downforce would be to relax the regulations
regarding the permitted dimensions of the rear diffuser.
Larger diffusers would enhance the ground effect which
is usually manifest in greater front-end downforce.
The suggestions relating to nose length can not yet be
verified experimentally because the wind tunnel model
used for this study did not facilitate the use of different
nose geometries within the scheduled time scale.
CONCLUSION
Wind tunnel test data have been presented from a
detailed experimental study of a typical “LM”GTP car
under design and off-design pitch and ground clearance
conditions including extreme cases of nose-up pitching
moment. It is shown that the aerodynamic forces alone
are unlikely to be sufficient to lead to the onset of instabil-
ity ( rotation leading to take-off ) even at high angles of
attack. However the effective weight reduction that occurs
as a car passes over a relatively sharp brow is shown to
reduce the incidence required for rotation to only 1°.
Although this is beyond the operational envelope of most
cars there are realistic combinations of aerodynamic
characteristics, suspension characteristics and track con-
tours that could, in extreme cases, place some designs
close to or even beyond the critical point. A suggested
mechanism to move designs further from this critical
operating condition is to reduce the permitted overhang
at the nose of the car whilst allowing greater flexibility to
generate downforce using ground effect.
REFERENCES
1. Katz, J., Race Car Aerodynamics- Designing for
Speed, Pub. Robert Bentley, ISBN 0-8376-0142-8,
1995
2. Automobile Club de l’Ouest, 24 Heures du Mans,
Technical Regulations Prototype “LM”P & “LM”GTP,
1998
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3. Dominy, R.G., Hodson, H.P., An Investigation of Fac- CONTACT

tors Influencing the Calibration of 5-Hole Probes for
3-D Flow Measurements, ASME Journal of Turboma- Dr. R. G. Dominy, Director, Centre for Automotive
chinery vol. 115, pp 513-518, 1993. Research, University of Durham, School of Engineering,
4. Dominy, J.A., Dominy, R.G., Aerodynamic Influences South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, U.K.
on the Performance of the Grand Prix Racing Car. Email: R.G.Dominy@durham.ac.uk ),
Proc. IMechE Part D vol. 198, pp. 1-7, 1984. Web: http://www.dur.ac.uk/car
5. Dominy, R.G., Ryan, A., Sims-Williams, D.B., The
Influence of Slipstreaming upon Race Car Perfor- DEFINITIONS, ACRONYMS, ABBREVIATIONS
mance, to be published IMechE, Autotech, 1999
6. Wright, P., Cleared for take-off, Racecar Engineering, Downforce: negative lift
vol.9, No.7, pp 16-18, 1999 Dynamic head: 0.5 x density x velocity2
7. Racecar Engineering, vol.9, No.7, p36, 1999 L: vehicle overall length
Pitch: positive pitch angle denotes nose-up
W: vehicle width
x: distance in the axial direction
y: lateral distance
z: vertical distance measured from the ground