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Shocks:
I work very closely with both Penske & Ohlins & can assure you that the vast majority of shock development goes on over here in CART. Penske even has a special program going on with a certain FF driver to test out mechanical grip improvements (FF's are totally dependent on mechanical grip, but they now regularly generate over 2.1 G's !)
There is also a new shock research dyno that a friend is putting the finishing touches on that is light years ahead of what the F1 boys use ( mostly SPA or Rohrig). The current generation of dynos are pretty pathetic when it comes to reproducing real shock motions.
As far as the new regs influencing weight reduction quests: on the surface to the unitiated, they may seem to be forcing designers to extreemes. But the reality is that the designers would be doing it anyway, as long as the budget is there to do so.
Reliability is actually no different than in previous years - cars have always broken, and always will. Kinda inherent with "pushing the envelope". I'd be willing to bet that the current crop of cars are actually more reliable than those of years past because of the advances in computer modeling and because of advanced manufacturing processes.
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