An elite team pursuit team puts out more watts on the start than a decent national-tier sprinter does in a flying 200, and the Cervelo T4 has been the bike of choice on the world cup circuit for the team pursuit for the past, what, decade? Only recently matched by Argon18. So I think the problem is less "Cervelo can't figure out how to make a strong bike" and more "this partnership delivered a product a month before its trial by fire with no time for meaningful iteration." Nobody gets anything right the first time and I am not surprised that we're seeing this bizarre new GB bike before the World Cups start. I'm sure that they want to figure out which of those gracefully attached 3d-printed bolted-on spiderweb components are going to break before they go to Tokyo.
(FWIW I talked to some people sprinting on Argon18s and they love 'em. By "some people" I mean "some people who race World Cups.")