I suspect you may be right. If that is the case, they were smart enough to put some holes to make them do something. That would be a smart move. If the vent holes clogged from leaves and debris, I doubt you will see the G70 on the side of the road broken down.No, I suspect that the engineers were asked by the design team if there was any issue with having a side vent of some sort. I imagine that the engineers said that they didn't see why that would be a problem.
But of course, I wasn't there for the conversation. I'm just speculating.