Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but I just read Alex's great book, Endure, and with the INEOS 1.59 challenge coming up I thought this was a relevant question.
Can someone explain why this study ignores windspeed? It wasn't a still day.
Running at 13mph into a 13mph headwind would mean the air is moving past Kipchoge at 26mph. At that speed, as Alex says, the Tesla would make a huge difference.
Kipchoge would then loop round and get a 13mph tailwind, meaning the air was "passing" at 0mph. So on the back straight the drafting would make little to no difference.
But it's a non-linear relationship, we're told double the speed means eight times the savings, so aren't the savings far greater than shown by a model that ignores wind?
Isn't the way to break 2 hours to run an out-and-back course on a very windy day, so you get pushed along by a huge tailwind for half of it, and zero headwind coming back thanks to your Tesla+runners?