F1 Nutter - The Story of Six Wheel Formula One Cars 6: Speaking of odd Formula One experiments, here’s another good one: the six-wheeled car.
The idea behind this was to hide the front tires behind the front fairing, since tires an aerodynamic pain to deal with — as far as the wind is concerned, they’re each just a big square it has to get around.
To hide the tires, however, they had to be made smaller. And when they made them smaller, they also made smaller the critical “contact patch,” where the tire meets the ground. The answer: four front tires. The contact patches were smaller, but there were twice as many.
According to the page linked above, the bottom line turned out that it was no slower than a regular car, but no faster either. This, combined with the fact that six tires slowed pit stops down considerably, ended this expirement fairly quickly.
The page also shows many examples of six-wheeled cars where the extra wheels are on the back of the car. I can’t figure out what advantage this would provide, which is perhaps why we don’t see any of these today.
8W - How? - Brabham BT46B: This is a great page about the legendary "fan car" of Formula One. The Fan Car used a fan (powered through the transmission) to eject air from under the car and basically suck itself down onto the track. The basic concept of ground effects…
According to http://8w.forix.com/sixwheelers.html the reason for the small front wheels was not for aerodynamics but rather to get more front rubber to the ground. The smaller frontal area was a nice bonus.
the reason for the small front wheels was not for aerodynamics but rather to get more front rubber to the ground.
Then why the smaller wheels? If they wanted more rubber, why not two more regular-sized wheels?
How will the double wheels afftect the steering of the cars?
