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My view is that it is always better to have a new car for the beginning of each season. This way you can make sure your car has the most advanced design and technology possible.
Williams are currently taking the traditional approach by bringing out a new car and developing it as much as they can through out the year and just bin the old car.
Ferrari are repeating their 2002 approach, that is they knew their 2001 car would still be competitive with the other teams 2002 cars so they raced their 2001 car and developed the F2002 in private with the aim of improving reliability. their tactic worked.
Mclaren had massive internal problems at the end of 2002, that is they are developing a brand new engine and gearbox for the 2003 season – their 2002 engine was a dud. So they spend a great deal of time and money developing the 2002 car with the hope of picking up some points early in the season before they introduced their 2003 monster.
1. The advantage that williams have is that they will soon know how their car works very well (eg..how to set up the car) and McLaren and Ferrai will still be learning theirs when they start to race them later this year.
2. Testing two models of car (F2002 & F2003) is very expensive and by focusing on the F2002 ferrari are wasting time that they could be developing the F2003.
3. I would think that teams would get more information from Testing their car at a test day and racing that same car at the races.
4. The McLaren should be a super car as the 2002 chassis was a good design and the 2003 chassis will be an advancement of this, The engine will be a lot better (they hired the guy that designed the BMW engine) and they hired the guy that designed the ferrari gearbox so the gearbox should be sweet.
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