If Ganna overtakes for example 3 guys and Pogacar none this could lead to some significant gains. I remember
@Logic-is-your-friend showed some numbers illustrating the time gain when overtaking a guy during a TT and it wasn't that small.
There has not been exact testing in windtunnels or controlled environments as far as i know. But there is a lot of circumstantial evidence and examples of "peculiar" outcomes. Then you also have common sense, knowing that slight changes in bikeframe, skinsuits (texture), helmets or postitioning in windtunnel testing, can give huge gains in a long TT. There has been extensive testing which indicates riding even 10m behind a motorbike gives immense advantages (i posted those on the forum a few years ago). It would be ridiculous to assume the advantage of being able to ride in someone's slipstream for a while would not result in a substantial gain.
The exact conditions would play a huge part obviously. Overtaking your minute man on a narrow, bendy or even straight-up technical parcours could very well hurt your end result, you might have to slow down to overtake the team car or the rider in a specific turn, while having had little aero draft in return. Also the rider himself would play a big role. If the guy is soft pedalling the TT at 10kmh slower, the amount of time you are drafting would be small. But if the guy is going all out and is for instance only 2s slower per km, then you get a large timeframe for potential draft. Then imagine you get to overtake him on a long straight road and the wind is in your face. You'd literally get slingshot past a rider after having benefitted for maybe multiple kilometers. In such a case i am certain we are not just talking about a 1 or 2 second gain but easily into 10+ seconds per rider you overtake. If one rider gets to overtake 3 riders, and the other 0, and the difference at the finish is 15 seconds, i 'd bet the outcome would have been different in equal conditions, let alone if the conditions were swapped.
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