Every now and then car manufacturers like Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche, release a more powerful, light weight and usually expensive version of their performance cars. In simple words these intimidating cars are seriously track focused, providing uncompromised performance. Different measures are taken to achieve this goal which involves extensive weight cutting, engine tweaking and even adding things like active aero kit which further enhance the aero dynamics of the car. But what did Lamborghini do with its Huracan Performance which shattered the production car lap record by 5 seconds? Read more to know!
Lamborghini’s in-house Invention:
Lamborghini likes to call their latest invention “ALA” (Aerodynamic Lamborghini Activa). With this smart technology, Lamborghini Huracan was able to beat Porsche 918’s Nurburgring lap record of 6:57:00 by mind boggling 5 seconds. For better understanding, Porsche 918 is a million dollar hyper car producing nearly 1000hp with a ferocious acceleration. On the other hand, Huracan performante costs almost 4 times less with a total output of 631hp. On paper, the Porsche can just destroy the Lamborghini but wait!
How Does ALA work?
ALA system ditches the conventional hydraulic rear wing system present in most high-performance cars today. These rear wings provide air braking and down force when needed but there are three major problems associated with this technology.
- Hydraulic fluids and the pump is heavy which adds more weight.
- It’s is slow (approx. 1 sec) to deploy.
- Lastly, the down force only acts on the rear of the car making the front end of the car go light.
Lamborghini addressed all three of these problems by adding two small flaps in the front splitter of the car while two at the rear along with the carbon fiber wing. This way the car magnificently channels the air by blocking and opening the flaps at the right time. The advantages of this system is
- It’s very light
- It only Takes 0.2 to deploy
- Front and Rear have same weight distribution
(Above: Front Splitter Nelow: Rear Wing)
When the car is facing too must drag these electronic flaps present in the front splitter open which results in decreased drag but increased down force. Whereas at the rear the flaps open to let air out from under the wing. Due to the quick response of the system, it allows the driver to corner at great speeds with high stability. To know more in detail about this technology watch the youtube video below.
Lamborghini is so proud of their invention that they even patented it. Not only that, when Lamborghini presented this technology to the Audi board, one of the directors proclaimed that, “Why didn’t Audi invent this?”. This shows how amazing this active aerodynamic technology is. It is futile if any manufacturers imagine claiming the fastest lap record without such technology anytime soon.
What do you think about this brilliance? Let us know in the comment section below.
