F1 the driving on the ceiling claim

[Doc Austin]

It may be possible - but how can you get up there?

How would you get it down, outside of crashing, that is?

[shazbot]

The basis of this claim is simply a numbers game. Back in the early 2000's when I was involved our car generated nearly 3000lbs of downforce at 150mph. With an F1 car weighing in at around 1300lbs you can see why the theoretical claim can be made. That's all there is to it.

[Kneeslider]

Don't forget, it might be a little less simple than just stating that a car weighs, say 1000 kg, and produces 1500kg of downforce, so it must be able to drive upside down.

Taking the maths simply, you can see that in the above case, it would be sufficient to stay upside down, and not fall.

But, with an excess of negative lift meaning that the car would only be 500kg, its a question of wether there would be enough traction to keep the car upside down. That is the tricky bit.

I would have thought that someone would have made a scale model by now which was capable of performing the trick?

[Zeakiwi]

It is over 30 years ago since the ground effect era. The days of the Lotus 78 and 79 and Williams FW07 etc. The skirts and wings created downforce and 'suck'.
Imperial College did race car wind tunnel testing for Lotus and Williams.
Indy car had similar comments, the 200 mph lap average was broken in 1977.
The initial drive upside comment is more likely to be written in a book, magazine, newspaper, recorded in tv or radio archive.

[Nem14]

They can measure the down force in a wind tunnel.

The down force racing cars use is generated by the same physics that makes airplane wings work, but applied so the 'lift' is into the ground (negative lift) rather than up into the sky (positive lift).

Since an airplane can fly upside down and maintain or increase altitude it is not theoretical that a moving racing car that generates more down force than it weighs when not moving could indeed be driven on an upside down roadway (ceiling).
Imagine the cost of building an upside down roadway though.

Ground effect cars, like Indy Cars, generate more down force than flat bottom cars with a diffuser, like F1 cars have.

A ground effects car starts generating down force at about 70 mph if the front/rear wings are trimmed to provide maximum down force. At about 100 mph the down force generated is about equal to the weight of the car when it is standing still.
So a 1500 lb car moving at about 100 mph would tip a scale at 3000 lbs, 1500 of those pounds being due to 1G of gravity.

If the road surface was gradually spiraled 90° so the road surface was above the car, the down force and gravity would be equal but in opposite directions and the car would then tip a scale as being 0 weight.

At more than 100 mph the down force would be greater than the 180°direction of the 1G of gravity so the car would stay adhered to the upside down roadway.

Note that on some tracks, like oval tracks, the wings of a ground effect car are sometime adjusted to reduce down force, because generating down force also increases drag.

At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the wings are often adjusted so they deliver a slight positive lift while the ground effects continue to deliver negative lift as a means for maximizing car balance and speed on the straights..