Plank

A plank in motorsport is a flat, rectangular piece of material attached to the bottom center of a racing car to control how low the car can run and ensure minimum ground clearance for safety and fairness.

The plank serves as a crucial safety component, introduced after serious accidents in the 1990s. When cars run too low to the ground, they can suddenly lose grip and become dangerous to drive. The plank acts like a buffer, preventing teams from making their cars dangerously low.

Think of the plank as a built-in speed bump under the car. Racing teams naturally want to run their cars as close to the track surface as possible because this creates more downforce - the invisible force that pushes the car down and helps it corner faster. The plank sets a limit on how low they can go.

Modern planks are made from tough plastic materials, though they were originally wooden. In Formula 1, the plank measures about 12 inches wide and runs along most of the car's length underneath. It starts at 10mm thick when new and can only wear down to 9mm during a race weekend.

After races, officials randomly select cars to check their planks using special measuring tools. If a plank has worn down more than the allowed 1mm, that's an automatic disqualification - no matter where the driver finished. This happened to Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc at the 2023 United States Grand Prix, costing them valuable points.

The plank system helps level the playing field between teams. Without it, only the richest teams with the most advanced technology could safely run extremely low cars, giving them an unfair advantage over smaller teams.

While primarily associated with Formula 1, planks or similar skid blocks are used in many other racing series to maintain fair competition and safety standards.