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Originally Posted by Mirage77 It really surprises me that cars like the Gallardo and Murcielago which look like the slickest cars in the world that could cut through air, don't do well in the aerodynamics department. Well at least not as good as I expected them to do. |
Remember one thing: drag coefficients basically tell us how "slippery" a car slices through the air when moving. For sports cars and race cars, what is very important is "downforce", which aids in cornering speeds. But the only to generate downforce is to create differences in air pressure between different surfaces of the car (like a wing or spoiler), which means you have to harness the air to do the work.
In other words, a car with very high downforce inevitably results in a higher drag coefficient. That's why cars like the Gallardo, Zonda, etc, have fairly high drag coefficients.
A good example of this is the retractable wing on the Veyron. In normal handlng mode, the wing is tilted up to generate good amounts of downforce to allow for stable and high speed cornering. However, this tilted up wing creates a lot of drag. To achieve the car's top speed, the wing has to retract to minimize the drag, but then you obviously lose the downforce on the rear wheels.