Development Issue

I'm new to the game and would like to know if the issue I'm having is working as intented or not.

My rep is 5631, Scouting is lvl 6 and Development is lvl 6. I'm a part of a Daily 50% race length league.

I have 87 engineers at lvl 5 skill, with 12 on each component, except Front Wing which has 15%. My Development bar is set full to next season.

The level for this seasons model is 47% for everything except Front Wing, which is 43%. Next seasons model is all at 19%, except Front Wing which is 16%.

I got this report from my chief engineer.

This season performance: Chassis (+1%), Sidepods (+1%), Rear wing (+1%), Suspension (+1%), Underbody (+1%), Internals (+1%)

Next season performance: Chassis (+5%), Sidepods (+5%), Rear wing (+5%), Suspension (+5%), Underbody (+5%), Internals (+5%)

My next model is due on the 12th of May, which means 5 races will have passed. If the report is the same, my next seasons model will be 24% which blows when I'm already competing against 100% cars.

Am I doing anything wrong, is there something going wrong or is this just the way it is?

Please help and thanks for reading.

PS - I have not cloned anything since making that mistake last season. Hence the different level for Front wing.

every increase in this season design slows the gains, put more designers on fewer parts to get gains faster.  I have 121 designers currently at level 20, my current season car is 66% and I get gains on 4 parts 1 day and 3 on the next (I do have a handful of idle designers every day but as the current season design increases I have to add 1-2 more designers to each part) so I get a complete car design increase every 2 days which is the most you can do

In your case put say 15-18 designers (or however many it takes to get tomorrow to show) on 4 parts today and you should get a increase tomorrow then put designers on the 3 parts you didn't do today and you will gain the day after.  Since you can only upgrade a part every 2 days anyhow you still stay on track.  That make sense?  It is the way design is set up, nothing wrong with how it works.

OK, thanks for that Bill. I'm starting to understand it a bit better. I had never noticed the date change as the designer numbers change before you pointed it out to me. I've just been going about it all wrong by evenly assigning my designers.

Much appreciated :)