Who was the first to put a downforce wing on a racecar?

[J.A.W.]

Actually T-C, Jack Northrop employed spoilers to good effect - on his monsterous P-61 night-fighter of WW2,
& thereby established their worth for wings.

The lip 'spoiler' on a car's tail does in fact "spoil" the departing airflow, & (if at the expense of added drag),
does at least kill the lift/offer some downforce, albeit - not as effectively as a proper airfoil, mounted high in the clean air-stream..

[johnny comelately]

Actually as godlameroso (with pictures to prove it) said in another post, a bird worked it out first....now that brings us to evolution....is man and formula 1 just continuing the Darwin thesis? (rather big )

[J.A.W.]

Actually Johnny, F1 aero these days is seriously role constrained - unlike aircraft back in the `40s..

& Jack Northrop's 'Flying Wing' featured active wingtip slots which were auto-uncovered to provide
aero-stability at high AoA, something which could be useful in F1, IF active aero ( other than DRS) was ok'd.

[Tommy Cookers]

the whole point of the tail so-called 'spoiler' is that the airflow is attached not separated aka spoiled
the tail s-c 'spoiler' energises flow upstream (ie prevents separation upstream of tail) then pushes flow up at tail (attached)
so there is less drag and a local DF (50 lb DF at 100 mph in the Aston Martin DB6 road car vs the 'unspoilered' DB5)

ok if the SCS is big there's no drag reduction but more DF
(interesting in your NASCAR ref the tail spoiler height limit rules)
Ginther introduced deep SCS on Ferrari prototypes 1960-61

real spoilers kill lift by causing separation (turbulence) from crown of lifting surface not attached flow vector at tail

btw
'active wingtip slots auto-uncovered' ??????? what ?
slots aka slats were quite common and either fixed or moveable (controlled manually or automatically ie passive)
they were not active and rarely manually operated or even coupled
eg it seems no Allied pilot flying a 109 could ever safely or consistently get the slots out
we now know that most 109 pilots couldn't/didn't except the early experts in early planes
this was not part of the production test until later years and then irrelevant as typically ignored
life or death stuff - if a pilot's landing or t/o calls for slot action then both should deploy simultaneously

now very many planes have LE flap 'droops' (integrated with slotted TE flap use) operated externally

[Just_a_fan]

The Ford GT(40) ran large tail end spoilers (technically a big Gurney) at Le Mans. From memory, they found the first, relatively small, one killed the instability creating rear lift on the Mulsanne with no obvious drag increase. They ended up running up to 4 inch high devices. Anything bigger than that gave no benefits but caused a big drag increase.

[Just_a_fan]

Actually as godlameroso (with pictures to prove it) said in another post, a bird worked it out first

Yeah, but he was wrong there...

[J.A.W.]

...btw
'active wingtip slots auto-uncovered' ??????? what ?
slots aka slats were quite common and either fixed or moveable (controlled manually or automatically ie passive) they were not active and rarely manually operated or even coupled

The Me slats, ( utilized post-war by NAA on their 'state of the art' swept-wing F-86) were 'active' (moving),
whereas notch-type slots*, sometimes cut 'dog-tooth' into the wing - were not, & nor were 'wing-fence' lateral 'spoilers'..

The Northrop system AFAIR, used lateral slots* near the wing tips, which were normally flush, but were
opened for stability control purposes - automatically - by the degree of pilot's control wheel turn arc..

* Of the 'notch' type, cut chord-wise.

Edit: Added clarification.

[J.A.W.]

The Ford GT(40) ran large tail end spoilers (technically a big Gurney) at Le Mans. From memory, they found the first, relatively small, one killed the instability creating rear lift on the Mulsanne with no obvious drag increase. They ended up running up to 4 inch high devices. Anything bigger than that gave no benefits but caused a big drag increase.

Indeed J-a-F, even the fairly modest 'duck tail' spoilers added to homologation variants of production-based
race cars, such as the Z-28 Camaro for T/A competition, & the GTR-XU1 Torana in Australia - were
found to be worthwhile/effective at high speed, & esp' over undulating elevation circuit - circumstances..

[JordanMugen]

It would take until 1968 for Formula 1 to allow its constructors to follow Yunick’s lead by adopting front- and rear-mounted wings,

Were wings not allowed on F1 cars before '68?

[hollus]

AFAIK they were, but wings cost weight and drag.
It is easy to forget that circuits have changed. F1 used to be contested in straights, with corners being almost a topologically necessity. Towards the end of the 60s the transition to circuits dominated by corners connected by straights was underway.

Some old F1 tracks, wings wouldn´t help much there:

[Tommy Cookers]

well the May brothers entered their seriously winged Porsche at the Nurburgring in 1955 (or 56 ? and Monza ? some say)
and Sir/Mr Moss used the Le Mans MB's airbrake flap partially to improve cornering (and laptime) till told to stop
remember the F1 W196 'streamliner' generated lift - as did all such 'sports' cars except some British ones

btw the unlabelled and unusual track is the A.V.U.S. in its later version
a Mr Nuvolari in his employer's bimotore Alfa Romeo once made 3 tyre stops there - in a 5 lap race