https://www.amazon.co.uk/Faster-Obsession-Science-Fastest-Cy... is an interesting read related to this.

(Cycling obviously, but the genetics behind VO2max apply across different types of physical activity.)

The Specialized video[1] is worth watching - it's pretty funny how astonished they were over how much power it saved.

If you are interested in this, then the book Faster: The Obsession, Science and Luck Behind the World's Fastest Cyclists by Michael Hutchinson is really good (and very well written).

He notes that human intuition about aerodynamics just isn't very good (you have to test) and that the current state of the art is no longer wind tunnel testing but computational fluid dynamics (CFD) followed by testing with a power meter on the road.

CFD lets designers iterate much quicker on designs and try things outside the norm (avoiding the local maxima problem). Power meters plus riding is better than wind tunnel testing because things like variable cross winds are very hard to test in wind tunnels.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZnrE17Jg3I

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Faster-Obsession-Science-Fastest-Cycli...