Does anyone have knowledge of the downforce levels throughout the years? Especially in the 1970's and 1980's. How the downforce grew throughout the 1970's, and I'm very interested how the ground-effect cars of the late 1970's and very early 1980's compare to later 1980's cars, 1990's cars, or just newer cars in general. I've heard that the ground-effect cars and particularly the Brabham BT46B (Which proved that it could dominate compared to the already dominant Lotus 79) had some of the highest downforce levels in F1 until the early 2010's. Actual track times are probably difficult to compare since they were restricted by the lower horsepower compared to the massive power engines of the 1980's, and other factors.
Here's a quote I found interesting on Wikipedia:
''Brabham's lead driver, Niki Lauda, realised he had to adjust his driving style, mostly for cornering. He found that if he accelerated around corners, the car would "stick" to the road as if it were on rails. This had the side effect of exposing the driver to very high lateral acceleration, which would become a major problem in the ground effect era. In his autobiography, Lauda described the car as being unpleasant to drive due to the lateral loads and reliance on aerodynamics over driver skill. He realised early on that the rate of ground effect development meant that in the future, every driver would be exposed to such g-loading while behind the wheel of such a car, and the physical effort needed to drive the cars would leave the drivers exhausted by the end of the races.''
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