When testing the car during practice I can configure the car using car parts (i.e. chassis, wings etc) with a particular design (i.e. old, less favourable designs), collect feedback and then for qualification re-configure the car with different car parts (i.e. better, faster, newer designs) but retain all the testing feedback and performance boost. Wouldn't it be more realistic that your practice feedback is refreshed/adjusted down when you swap in new/different parts - i.e. to reflect the fact that testing hasn't been completed with the new part?
I suspect that the car parts knowledge is intended to make up for this switching of parts but an adjustment to testing results makes more sense to me.
Another idea to improve realism might be to use practice sessions to collect lap times with different tyres and so improve pit stop strategy planning - i.e. that practice and qualification laps provide additional information about drivers' and car setups' lap times and tyre degradation that can be used to refine lap time estimates in the strategy planner. Default times can be used to provide a baseline where a tyre or setup isn't actually trialled in a practice or qualification run. This leads to another query - do the tyre lap times and degradation details in the circuit reports change/update from season to season? Presumably they ought to!?
I suspect that the car parts knowledge is intended to make up for this switching of parts but an adjustment to testing results makes more sense to me.
Another idea to improve realism might be to use practice sessions to collect lap times with different tyres and so improve pit stop strategy planning - i.e. that practice and qualification laps provide additional information about drivers' and car setups' lap times and tyre degradation that can be used to refine lap time estimates in the strategy planner. Default times can be used to provide a baseline where a tyre or setup isn't actually trialled in a practice or qualification run. This leads to another query - do the tyre lap times and degradation details in the circuit reports change/update from season to season? Presumably they ought to!?