Tom
I've wondered this as well, do the supplier bonuses actually do anything? Because with an engine supplier bonus my acceleration is 100, however when other teams (including my sister team) look at the design review, they see the highest acceleration at around 86 suggesting the top team (my team) has room for improvement. So my question is this: If I spend further design points on acceleration, will it make an effect? Do supplier bonus points actually make a physical difference to the way the car behaves?
They do make a difference and you can't see the supplier bonus from other teams, only their base car design. That was mainly changed because you can't spy on supplier bonus and with that bonus shown it wasn't clear if and how many points spying would get me. For example if I have 80 points on handling and the other team 90 that gap could be from differences in suppliers or from more design points spent.
Spending further design points depends on tier. In Rookie and Pro overspending will have an effect, in Elite not. The reason is that the game can't use any higher values than 100 for technical reasons and the lower tiers have their cap at a lower value leaving room to go above. For Elite the cap is right at that technical boundary and thus anything more is wasted. Reprogramming this is considered but it depends how many of us users would like it changed and how badly for priority.