Quote:
Originally Posted by wnut
Would have been around 1980 when the Williams ground effect car suddenly started working and nobody was sure why.
There was also a lot of outrage, understandably, when Lotus mechanics were caught measuring a Williams chassis in one of the transporters during a qualifying session, not sure if it was the man himself.
The teams were having a lot of trouble with locating the centre of pressure under the cars, and stopping them losing all downforce when they were sucked down too low and the air stalled under the car and suddenly stopped generating downforce.
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I think probably a year or two earlier, when lotus produced the wing car and then the first ground-effect car. Teams were copying without having a clue what was really going on. Aside from Lotus, Williams were the first team to really get a handle on ground effect and proceeded to do it better than Lotus while Lotus overstepped the mark with the 80 and then headed off down a crazy blind alley.