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I think history has shown that a team if cuts off developing the current car earlier to shift development to the next year's car the opposit of what we expect happens! It makes next year's car much better than if they had continued late development with the current car.
I use RedBull as the positive case. They always compete all the way each year, developing to season's end, fighting tooth and nail.. And it doesn't seem to hurt the next car, it seems to make it even stronger! While other teams like Mercedes and Ferrari still don't get things right no matter how early they cut off.
In terms of Red Bull, especially this year, it's important to get assured if they can trust their methodologies and tools. Obviously as we see with the latest updates they've kind of turned it around as correlation between factory and track seems to be improved.
They also have quite a bit more aero testing allowance based on their P4 in WCC compared to previous years and maybe they use a certain percentage for the current car.
I think you've worded your original paragraph poorly. I understand what you're saying, especially with your second paragraph for full context, but it's a little confusing at first.
But anyways, I think it's more complicated than simply looking at Red Bull and saying, "Well in the past, if they continued to develop their current car and next year's car is still good, it means everybody should do the same!". Cuz, and I know I'll sound like a broken record with this - not every team has Adrian Newey. The most important thing for a car is to be born well. The fundamental groundwork of the car is usually what sets the course for overall competitiveness. But even more than that, when you can nail a good direction early and confidently, you can spend a lot more of your development time and resources going in the right direction. But this requires supreme trust in your design and engineering leadership in setting the course and committing to it. And there's precious few teams where such trust is fostered and earned.
So yea, you often see this sort of thing when it comes to the top team(s) of the day. Where they aren't hampered as much by continual late development, cuz they are still confident enough with what they're doing for next year to be able to successfully achieve both goals.
But I think the calculus becomes different if you dont have that trust. If your current car isn't great, or has some fundamental flaws, a team might well need more development time and resources to analyze solutions and figure out what direction they need to be going for next year. Of course this still often doesn't work out, but sometimes it's just something you have to try anyways, simply to give yourself the chance. There's often not a lot you can achieve pursuing late season developments of a car that is fundamentally flawed, because it's not like such developments are usually anything more than some bodywork changes, and most bigger problems with cars are deeper than that.
And the calculus can also be different depending on what 'next year' actually entails in terms of regulations and whatnot. How much can development of the current car carry over into next year's ideas? If a fair bit, then you're getting a lot of valuable on-track testing by continuing with developments, which can help validate design decisions and build confidence for the direction of the project for next year. But if there's a much bigger change in regulations and not as much design knowledge and ideas carry over, then things become a lot more questionable.
Cost cap considerations are also a pretty significant factor these days. And simply having limited scope for what you can(or can realistically) change within a given season, especially in the back half of a season. And that finishing higher in the current season leads to less windtunnel time + CFD runs for next year. All things to consider.
Just all in all, very much one of those 'it depends' sort of things. Each team in any given season needs to figure out the right balance for themselves and their current situation. You really cant just blanket apply any one strict approach.
I think it depends on whether there is a rule change the following season and how big.
If the rules are stable then I think continuing to work on anything that can carry over certainly has benefits.
However if you look back to the 2008 into 2009 seasons it is clear that Brawn benefited from Honda focusing on 2009 early and that McLaren and Ferrari suffered from continuing to develop their cars almost to the end of 2008.
Likewise Mercedes benefited from stopping developing their 2013 car early while Red Bull suffered from not stopping as early.
The big exemption really is 2021 into 2022 when Red Bull managed to carry their performance across the rules change. Though I think a lot of that has to do with Newey and his team nailing the underfloor better than most other teams.
It will be interesting to see how Mercedes do next year for sure.
"From success, you learn absolutely nothing. From failure and setbacks, conclusions can be drawn." - Niki Lauda
I think the key factor is correlation, and the moment you transition is only secondary to that. Time spent is only valuable when it is spent well. From 2020-2023 Red Bull seemed to have good correlation, and everything worked, both the floor changes in 21 and the rule overhaul in 22. Mercedes on the other hand did not understand their car in 21 (although it proved fast end of season) and were a mess in 22.
So in current RB's position it seems right to keep developing. It helps getting on top of the correlation issues, and helps 26 in that way. For McLaren the early shift makes sense, because they seem to have their correlation right, so what they develop is expected to translate to on track performance.
Everything is a sound strategy till the car stops performing. It is always a toss up and a die roll as far as regulations go. Top teams all have good people. So if all stars align, it will be good.
On this, if people haven't read Total Competition by Ross Brawn and Adam Parr, it's quite an interesting read. Quite dry in places, but still interesting.
In places Brawn talks about this sort of decision making during his time at various teams.
"From success, you learn absolutely nothing. From failure and setbacks, conclusions can be drawn." - Niki Lauda
