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This is how ground effects work in a nutshell

There are two ways to generate downforce. One is with all manner of wings and spoilers on the surface of the vehicle. The other is with ground effects. One you can clearly see, the other remains something of a hidden mystery. Fortunately, the good folks at Lotus and Goodwood are here to dumb it down for us non-engineer types. It's called Bernoulli's Principle, named after Swiss physicist Daniel Bernoulli who literally wrote the book on the subject way back in the 1700s. Countless engineers have spent their careers focused on its study and application, but the crux of the matter is that, as the speed of air (or other "fluid") increases, pressure decreases. Play with the air's increasing speed and decreasing pressure just right and you can generate downforce underneath the body of a car without significantly increasing drag as you would with surface spoilers. For evidence of how Bernoulli's Principle applies in practical terms, just look at the last Ferrari to pack a turbocharged V8 in the middle and the latest one. The F40 had a giant wing on the back, where the 488 GTB has none. But because the 488 uses underbody aerodynamics (or "ground effects"), it generates significantly more downforce than the winged F40 ever could, and at lower speeds. Ferrari, however, was not the first outfit to harness the power of ground effects. Lotus did with the legendary 79 that Mario Andretti drove to the world championship back in 1978. That was the genius of Colin Chapman, and to explain how it all works in layman's terms, our friends over at Goodwood Road & Racing brought in Colin's son Clive Chapman, head of Classic Team Lotus, to put together the video above. Related Video:

China's Geely says it has no plan to buy Fiat Chrysler — as FCA stock leaps

HONG KONG — Chinese carmaker Geely Automobile denied media speculation on Wednesday that it planned to make a takeover bid for Fiat Chryslerk Automobiles (FCA), the world's seventh-largest automaker. Geely was one of several Chinese carmakers cited in by Automotive News, which said representatives of "a well-known Chinese automaker" had made an offer this month for FCA, which has a market value of almost $20 billion. "We don't have such a plan at the moment," Geely executive director Gui Shengyue told reporters at an earnings briefing, when asked if Geely was interested in Fiat. He said a foreign acquisition would be complicated, but he did not elaborate. "But for other (Chinese) brands, it could be a fast track for their development," Gui added. However, a source close to the matter said FCA and Geely Automobile's parent firm, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, had held initial talks late last year, without disclosing their nature. The source confirmed Geely was no longer interested in FCA, noting that the parent company had only three months ago announced its first push into Southeast Asia with the purchase of 49.9 percent of struggling Malaysian carmaker Proton, a deal that also included a stake in Lotus. Geel's denial failed to dent FCA's stock. The price of its Milan-based shares has jumped more than 10 percent to a 19-year high since Automotive News first reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources, that FCA had rejected the Chinese offer as too low. FCA stock on the New York Stock Exchange rose sharply on Monday from $11.60 to $12.38 and on Wednesday was trading at $12.84. FCA declined to comment on Wednesday. FCA Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne has repeatedly called for mergers as a way of sharing the costs of making cleaner, more advanced cars, but he has repeatedly failed to find a partner and retreated from his search for in April, saying FCA would stick to its business plan. He has also spoken of spinning the successful Jeep and Ram divisions off from FCA. Europe's largest carmaker, Volkswagen, and General Motors have both said they are not interested in talks with FCA. On Wednesday, Geely Automobile reported a doubling of first-half profit, above expectations, as cars designed with Sweden's Volvo won over domestic consumers. Volvo is a unit of the Zhejiang Geely group, and has recently announced it will share its technology with Geely.

Lotus F1 Team reveals new E23 Hybrid

Lotus is keen to leave a lackluster 2014 Formula One World Championship campaign behind it and race forward towards a new era, and this is the car with which it hopes to do so. The new E23 Hybrid is the twenty-third chassis to come from the Enstone-based team. As with the new Williams that was the first new chassis revealed for this year, the principal difference you can see is the more conventional nose to replace the twin-tusk setup of the E22, but there's more to it than that. For starters, it's the first new Lotus to pack Mercedes power after the team parted ways with Renault – the manufacturer that used to own the team and which has powered every car the team has built since Benetton signed with the French automaker way back in 1995. It also packs a completely new suspension setup after the original FRIC design in the preceding E22 was banned mid-season, forcing Enstone engineers to go back to the drawing board halfway through the championship. Word has it that, after earlier rumors suggested the team might not even make it back onto the grid, new sponsors will be added before the season gets under way in Melbourne on March 15 with the Australian Grand Prix. To pilot the new car, Lotus has retained the same two drivers as last year in Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado. The team is hoping to perform better this season than it did the last, when it finished the constructors' championship way down in eighth place – the same result it achieved in 2009 under Renault ownership and the worst it had performed since the Toleman days in 1983.