Red Bull accusations are wide of the mark

Andy Green says Red Bull’s accusations that IP from their RB18 was taken over to Aston Martin is “very wide of the mark”.

Aston Martin raised eyebrows at the Spanish Grand Prix when the team revealed their updated AMR22, the car instantly dubbed the ‘green Red Bull’ by the media.

Such is the resemblance to Red Bull’s race-winning car that already the FIA have been involved, although they cleared Aston Martin of any wrongdoing.

But while Aston Martin told PlanetF1 their “update was generated as a result of legitimate independent work in accordance with the Technical Regulations”, Red Bull want to know when the ideas for the upgrades came from.

Christian Horner said it was “no coincidence” the AMR22 resembled the RB18 given Aston Martin had employed several former Red Bull personnel.

But while he concedes that “what they take in their head, that’s fair game, that’s their knowledge”, he added: “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.”

“Can you copy without documents in such a way that you can get such a detailed copy of our car?” #F1 https://t.co/2p9TlX0iJa

— PlanetF1 (@Planet_F1) May 21, 2022

And Helmut Marko reckons the latter is what is in play, telling Sky Germany: “There is evidence that data has been downloaded.

“It’s just the question: copying is probably not prohibited to begin with, but can you copy without documents in such a way you can get such a detailed copy of our car?”

Green, Aston Martin’s chief technical officer, has vehemently denied this.

“I don’t know what these accusations are that Red Bull are pinging about. All I can say is at no stage did we ever receive any data from any team,” insisted Green.

“The FIA came in and did a thorough investigation, examined all the data leading up in the history of this car, they interviewed all the people involved and concluded this was completely independent…