Actually flat underside is that creates pressure drop in the first place, when you constrict air to travel through tiny space under the car. Diffuser helps to make it more effective, but it only helps, it does not create effect.xpensive wrote:Ground-effect by Bernoulli obviously comes from air travelling faster under the car than above, which I believe would be rather difficult to achieve to any greater extent with a flat underside.
Yes, but they also they also were concerned that suspension needs some travel to work properly. They also had very little floor area compared to modern cars.In the old days, you still had every reason to run as close to the ground as possible, vertical CoG being one of them.
It's not that it would be safer with diffuser, it is that flat floor is more dangerous than T-shaped floor and that to still allow some DF (I want cars to be able to sustain that lateral Gs they can now ) you need T-floor + diffuser. Why not a standard diffuser?But anyway, the point was that I failed to see that an F1-car would be safer because of the diffuser?
On why T-floor is safer - first thing is that you have only a limited area in close proximity to the ground. Another thing is that as sides are higher DF is much sensitive to roll.
Look at in car videos from 1988 to 1992. Cars are beasts to drive! There's literary NO suspension. All that came from desire to keep floor as low to the ground and with as little ground-clearance variation as possible.