wombat999
Premium
Ground effect as it was in the 70's and 80's was banned about a decade before Senna's death, so he has nothing to do with it.
- To clarify that point, 'Ground Effects' were more or less banned as mentioned due to political pressure from the Grandee Teams (insert Ferrari) as it was the only way of reining in the (mostly) Cosworth teams. However (there's always one) the flat bottom regulation didn't go far enough as I mentioned above. IMHO opinion at the time and today the cars should have had no aero from the tip of the nose to very end of the tail. The supposed rationale for banning ground effects was the fear that a car could lose suction leading to a catastrophic stability failure likely to send the car into the air and into a spectator area. Jochen Mass did indeed have that experience in 1982 at Paul Ricard, luckily without any spectators in his LZ. The drivers were vocal about the high G forces generated through corners knocking them around, as well as the extremely hard ride leading to some spinal damage. Yes, teams have invested far to much money in wind tunnels and aerodynamics, they should welcome mandatory aero restrictions as a money saving measure.