First, I’ll explain what the “slipstream” is. A car punches a hole in the air when it moves. This hole is exploited by a car behind to reduce the drag of the following car and gain speed on the leading car.
During open-wheel races such as the Indianapolis 500 or some F1 races (DRS notwithstanding), the draft is so strong— it’s like the car behind gains an extra 200 horsepower!
But during NASCAR races at the unrestricted ovals or during sports car races like the Daytona 24, it’s not anywhere nearly as strong. It takes half of the Daytona oval’s back straight to get to the back of a leading GT3 car and pass him, and you’d be lucky to even get to the leader’s rear bumper at unrestricted ovals like Michigan. If anything, it looks like the leading car _gains_ speed. Why is that?
In: Physics
The main one is the wings on those open wheel cars produce huge amounts of downforce but with the consequence of huge amounts of drag which you can slip stream in.
A smaller factor at that level is the uncovered wheels and cockpit also generate large amounts vs if they were covered. That’s small vs the wings in top level series, but can be an equal factor in lowblevel series.
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