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The aerodynamic force that pushes the car toward the ground, increasing tire grip without adding weight. Wings, splitters, and diffusers generate downforce, allowing higher cornering speeds.
Road Vehicle Aerodynamics (Scibor-Rylski) quantifies the progression: a car with basic negative-lift wings achieves "sideways acceleration of 1.94 g with aerodynamic download of nearly 590 lb — about 36% of vehicle weight." With full ground effect, "sideways acceleration would be 2.88 g and the aerodynamic download would be 1760 lb, or about 106% of the vehicle weight" — the aero force exceeds the car's own weight. McBeath's Competition Car Aerodynamics explains ground effect specifically: at approximately "0.136c ground clearance" (about 2.5 inches), a wing can "produce up to double the downforce it would in freestream air." For HPDE, even small aero additions create forces that grow with the square of speed.