By @IBMResearch
Publication Date: 2026-04-30 10:00:00
Whether it’s an IndyCar or a Le Mans Hypercar, driving a race car to victory takes grit and skill, but above all, raw speed. This puts smart engineering at the heart of any winning strategy.
In the search for a competitive edge, engineers iterate endlessly on new race car designs, tweaking the geometry of the body, front wing, rear diffuser, and tiny add-on aerodynamic components, to see if any of these new configurations can translate to meaningful performance gains on the track.
Computer-aided design and simulation have augmented the creative process, making it faster and easier to test new ideas in a virtual environment. Engineers today use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to predict how subtle design changes will affect aerodynamic forces like downforce and drag, as well as indirectly influencing vehicle handling, balance, and efficiency which determine how a vehicle behaves at speed and under different track conditions.
CFD is a powerful tool, but solving the complex…