Former Red Bull designer Dan Fallows predicts the team will feel the effect of the aerodynamic development penalty which was imposed on it for exceeding the budget cap.
However the Aston Martin technical director said his former squad are well-placed to minimise the consequences of their cut in development time.
Under F1’s rules, as the reigning champions Red Bull were always going to be restricted to a lower aerodynamic development allocation than any of their rivals. However their final quota was reduced from 70% of the reference total to 63% after they were found to have exceeded the budget cap during 2021.
Fallows joined Aston Martin last year having previously worked at Red Bull. He admitted it is “very difficult to say” precisely how and when Red Bull will feel the pinch of the reduction in how many wind tunnel runs and Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations it may conduct. But as they ended last season with by far the strongest car on the grid, winning 10 of the last 11 races, Fallows points out they go into the new campaign at a significant advantage.
“They’ve come from a very strong position with last year’s car,” said Fallows in response to a question from RaceFans. “There are regulation changes for this year, as we know, but they’re not massive. So they are clearly in a very good, very strong position going into this year.”
Red Bull will also be able to manage the consequences the lower limit has on their development over the season.
“That kind of restriction with your wind tunnel hours – you even get it, obviously, as you go up the grid – that does hurt. I think that restriction will hurt them to some extent.
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“But I think they have a great deal of strength in depth and they have a lot of experience of this rules set. So I’m fairly confident that they will minimise the impacts of that penalty.”
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner described the limit as “a significant handicap that we carry for the majority of the year.”
*Due to their penalty for exceeding the budget cap in 2021, Red Bull’s allocation this year is reduced from 70% to 63%
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