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Even small changes in automotive networks might have harmful impact to the correctness of the functionality due to changed timing behavior. In this paper, we present an approach to investigate the functional and timing-behavior of an automotive network at a very early design stage. To reach this goal, a virtual prototype of an automotive network is created. The prototype is used as a model for a simulation. The simulation allows a detailed analysis of the timing behavior of the system. As a case-study, a possible migration from a network architecture consisting solely of CAN and LIN to a FlexRay/CAN/LIN solution was investigated. We simulated different configurations and networking topologies and analyzed the results. It could be shown that it is advantageous to move components to the FlexRay bus, but certain issues concerning the configuration of the system, especially the networking topology, should be …