[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by miatanut

If a driver found themselves completely confounded by the lack of a fender over there, the team could mount a little wire with a dingle ball on the end where the fender would be. It would cost them a little drag but if that's what it took to keep from knocking rear corners off the car, that would be a fair trade.

The classic impact between two cars is an open wheel driver hitting a front wing of the car behind with their rear tire, maybe breaking the wing on the other car and cutting their own tire. This design would eliminate that problem by not having front wings out there at the extreme corners to get hit, so this design would actually reduce those "getting tapped in the rear" incidents.

It also eliminates the car behind riding up over the rear tyre of the car infront and becoming airborne, something that's led to some very scary accidents with open wheel cars.