Aston Martin debuted a number of upgrades for its AMR22 car on Friday ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, featuring design concepts that quickly drew parallels to Red Bull’s RB18 car.
The FIA revealed it had investigated the matter after noting the similarities as part of its routine pre-event checks, but deemed Aston Martin had followed the correct processes in designing the updates, thus complying with the regulations.
But Red Bull responded by issuing a statement saying that a transfer of its intellectual property would be a “serious breach” of the regulations.
A number of Red Bull staff, including former head of aerodynamics Dan Fallows, have made the switch to Aston Martin in recent months. Fallows formally started as Aston Martin’s technical director on 2 April.
“Imitation is the biggest form of flattery, at the end of the day,” Red Bull team principal Horner said on Sky Sports after practice on Friday in Spain.
“It’s no coincidence that we’ve had a few individuals that have transferred from Red Bull to Aston Martin over the winter and the early part of this season.
“It was brought to our attention by the FIA earlier in the week, when they said ‘we’ve got a car that looks remarkably like yours, can we have a list of your leavers to see where they went?’ So that immediately raises alarm bells.
“Now what is permissible, we see it up and down the paddock, individuals move from team to team after a gardening leave period. What they take in their head, that’s fair game. That’s their knowledge.
Red Bull Racing RB18 side detail
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
“What isn’t fair and what is totally unacceptable, which we wouldn’t accept is if there has been any transfer of IP at all.”
The FIA clamped down on rules surrounding the reverse engineering of cars in the wake of the ‘pink Mercedes’ controversy in 2020, when Racing Point – since rebranded as Aston Martin – tried to copy the design of the 2019 title-winning Mercedes using…
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