Front-wing ground effect

Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari currently appear to be converging on the same aerodynamic solution: a high-rake, nose-down stance to maximise the ground effect component of front-wing downforce, (with the use of exhaust-blown diffusers to retain rear downforce). Front-wing ground effect has always had a role to play, but the current emphasis is perhaps a consequence of the new technical regulations introduced for the 2009 season, which permitted the front-wing to be much closer to the ground.

To understand front-wing ground effect, it's worth revisiting some research performed by Zhang, Zerihan, Ruhrmann and Deviese in the early noughties, Tip Vortices Generated By A Wing In Ground Effect. This examined a single-element wing in isolation from rotating wheels and other downstream appendages, but the results are still very relevant.
The principal point is that front-wing ground-effect depends upon two mechanisms: firstly, as the wing gets closer to the ground, a type of venturi effect occurs, accelerating the air between the ground and the wing to generate greater downforce. But in addition, a vortex forms underneath the end of the wing, close to the junction between the wing and the endplate, and this both produces downforce and keeps the boundary layer of the wing attached at a higher angle-of-attack.

The diagrams above show how this underwing vortex intensifies as the wing gets closer to the ground. In this regime, the downforce increases exponentially as the height of the wing is reduced. Beneath a certain critical height, however, the strength of the vortex reduces. Beneath this height, the downforce will continue to increase due to the venturi effect, but the rate of increase will be more linear. Eventually, at a very low height above the ground, the vortex bursts, the boundary layer separates from the suction surface, and the downforce actually reduces.
So, for a wing in isolation, the ground effect is fairly well understood. One imagines, however, that the presence of a rotating wheel immediately behind the wing makes things a little more difficult!

The diagram here, from the seminal work in the 1970s by Fackrell and Harvey, demonstrates that the rotating wheel creates a high pressure region in front of it, (zero degrees is the horizontal forward-pointing direction, and 90 degrees corresponds to the contact patch beneath the tyre). Placing a high-pressure area immediately behind a wing will presumably steepen the adverse pressure gradient on the suction surface of the wing, causing premature detachment of the boundary layer. Hence, when the wings were widened in the new regulations, most designers immediately directed the endplates of the wings outwards, seeking to direct the flow away from those high-pressure areas.