Just wondering if, theoretically, a F1 car could simply run out of grip to compensate drag in the wet, and what would then happen.
I am not talking about aquaplaning here. The theoretical situation (Charlie would never allow it
) is an extremely wet track with a straight long enough the the cars can still approach their normal terminal speed. Say China in super extreme wet weather tires that won't aquaplane even in a lot of water. These tires would of course be very slow for cornering, with such extreme threads, but if they were used... In the dry an F1 car brakes at about 5G max. Roughly 1G comes from aero braking, that is, drag, and does not go through the tires. 4G go through the tires, though.
Now, in my theoretical extreme weather, the tires would only support 1G of acceleration. This corresponds roughly to the point where cornering speeds are halved compared to dry cornering speeds.
This car, approaching the end of the straights, would need 1G of grip just to stay at 300+ km/h and compensate for drag. This all has to go through the tires.
So what happens when this car runs out of grip to make up for the drag?
I can imagine that the first thing is that the car stops accelerating, it simply can't accelerate anymore. But the real question is what happens in conjunction with this magic moment when drag overcomes the longitudinal grip capacity. Is it a smooth event? Does the car simply stay in the edge at constant speed? Or do the wheels suddenly start spinning and lose even more grip? What happens to lateral stability when there is no more longitudinal grip to provide directional stability? Could a driver simply lift and regain grip, or would the car spin laterally?
