Too much wind?

[David]

Has anyone got any information on how wind affects lap times?

I had thought that head and tail wind would cancel each other out, but having looked at my data from KH on Saturday (it was very windy) it doesn’t seem that simple.

In short the speed lost in the headwind bits was bigger than the speed gained in the downwind bits.

[Tim S]

Never seen any data, but drag increases as the square of the speed - and there's also mechanical drag to add, which will get faster at faster engine and road speeds, so I reckon that a windy day must increase lap times, even on a circular circuit where the effect of the wind itself will be cancelled out.

Tim