SmallSoldier wrote: ↑17 Jan 2024, 22:40
It will depend on what changes are made to the car and if they need to validate new developments first… Depending the architectural changes to the chasis, they may decide to test with the 2023 aero package (if it can be used with the new chassis) to validate the mechanical improvements before they use the new aero package on the car.
From an aero perspective, they may also introduce parts during testing in an step process to validate parts individually.
I'm sure there will be an iterative process, I wouldn't suggest the car starting the testing will be the car finishing it as they will want to benchmark certain aspects and review the impact of each part. But I would expect it to look closer to the 24 car than the 23 and probably by a margin.
But as for using '23 parts, this may well be possible because it is in many ways what happened with the Austria update in that updates were brought that would work as a package at each race and with some older parts on the car, until the entire aero package was overhauled in the next 3 races. So the first update was the Sidepods, Floor, diffuser, engine cover etc... but this still covered the bulk of the car. The reason being that the parts are far less independent and the balance far more sensitive now.
But then those parts new in season were designed for that MCL60 chassis, cooling layout etc Are they that compatible? Everything tends to be quite a tight fit on these cars are we expecting the internals to not change much?