At last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, Aston’s AMR22 was revealed as one of several heavily revised machines, with changes to the car’s sidepods and the cooling architecture within noted as bringing the green car to looking strikingly similar to Red Bull’s RB18.
Debate regarding Aston’s changes took place throughout the weekend at Barcelona, even after the FIA cleared the team of wrongdoing.
Red Bull seemingly remained unconvinced and in Spain continued to comment on the potential for illegal intellectual property transfer when it comes to F1 car design staff switching teams, and has launched an internal investigation to establish if any such transgression had taken place in this case.
Fallows is one of several former Red Bull aerodynamic staff that have recently joined Aston, but as the most high-profile staffer to have moved across he is regularly cited in explanations of the controversy, even as Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko said, “it’s not just Dan Fallows” and Aston chief technical officer, Andy Green, stated “the majority of the [2022 design information] releases were made before anybody from Red Bull even turned up”.
Fallows’ switch from Red Bull to Aston sparked a legal dispute between the two sides regarding his previous contract and when he would be allowed to join his new team, which he was finally allowed to do on 2 April this year.
When asked by Autosport what he had made of the controversy that followed the updates being added to Aston’s 2022 package, Vettel said: “I think it was just at some point not fair.
“Especially towards, first of all, all the effort that went in [to change the AMR22].
“Second, on a personal level to Dan Fallows. I don’t think it was fair. Some things that were said, I think were not right.
“He’s a very good guy. I remember him from my time at Red Bull and obviously he’s joined the team and is with us now.
“So, some of the things that were said were just not right and I would…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Autosport.com – Formula 1 – Stories…