Been wondering this for a while, what purpose do they serve exactly?

 

Downforce on the front bumper and looks?

 

if they werent there all those cars would hit warp speed and then travel in the past. On slower cars, they're for downforce on the front bumper

 

Like what everyone has mentioned already...it's used to stabilize the front-end & keeps it down on the ground during high speeds. Same principle applies for rear wings & rear diffusers.

 

depending on what type of road course you're driving on, should determine the angle and curvature of the canard.

relatively technical medium speed tracks will require steeper sloped and wider canards will provide assistance to front splitters/diffusers to maximize front grip on turns.. while tracks with fast straights with minimal turns will require near flat and longer canards to reduce drag and provide less downforce.

 

^drag is a function of velocity, and is exponential at higher speeds. A higher degree of slope will provide more downward force and higher speeds, uneccary amounnts. So a high slope for low speed tracks, and low slope for high speed tracks.

 

Thanks, there were a few kits I was looking at that offered them, I think they are ugly but I thought I'd check and see if they are neccesary for anything.