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Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0
Will weight in general help with traction when aero is lacking? Maybe.
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I'll help out here. The answer is NO.
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Adding weight can very well lead to better stopping, turning and accelerating.
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No, it can't. Acceleration obviously suffers with increased weight, but so do braking and cornering. It is due to the nonlinear relationship between the load on a tire and its grip. Add 10% more load and grip will increase by something less than 10%.
Say a 3000 lb. car generates 3000 lb. of cornering grip, so it can corner at 1-g (3000 lb. grip/3000 lb. weight). Add 10%, 300 lb., vertical load and now it makes maybe 3280 lb. of cornering grip. If that +10%/300 lb. load came from *downforce*, car can now corner at 3280/3000 = 1.09-g. But if 10%/300 lb. of MASS is added to the car instead, now it corners at 3280/3300 = 0.99-g.
More downforce = good for cornering/braking g's. More weight = bad.
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The fact that the GTR did the Nurburgring faster than cars with more power that are lighter is a testament to that fact.
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GTR is fast in spite of its weight, not because of it. If adding weight made cars faster, race teams would do it to the extent that the rules allowed. Instead they remove as much weight as possible, to the extent the rules allow. But hey, maybe they're just idiots...