Design offices in Formula 1 teams, such as the one I work in as a senior aerodynamics engineer, face a tricky balancing act at this time of year. There is still some work going into the last few end-of-season car upgrades, but the vast majority of our efforts are now on next year's car. It's a trade-off we've been playing with for some months now, actually. There is always the temptation to roll the dice and switch development to next year's car early on in the season, hoping to jump up the grid. But the flip side is that your current car might be out-developed by other teams and you find yourself losing out on prize money, only to underperform next year anyway. It's a gamble that has paid...
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