How Fallows has fostered an “Aston Martin way” to boost F1 team

Fallows was recruited from Red Bull Racing, where he had been one of Adrian Newey’s key lieutenants for many years, and began work at the Silverstone team in April.

Inevitably, that has led to pointed suggestions from the Red Bull camp that the very competitive AMR23 is a copy of its car.

However, McCullough says that Fallows and new head of aerodynamics Eric Blandin were keen to mix their own knowledge, gained at Red Bull and Mercedes respectively, with that of the existing team members.

As such, they’ve encouraged the team to pursue an “Aston Martin way” of approaching car development.

“One had been at Red Bull one, the other than Mercedes,” said McCullough of Fallows and Blandin.

“They very much wanted to do what Dan refers to as the Aston Martin way, which is let’s listen to everything, let’s listen to all the people internally, let’s get the input from the two different ways of developing a car and then look at where we need to improve, and look at what we think is the best way of doing that.

“So that’s one thing I think Dan’s been very good at, just saying you’ve always got to look at what other people are doing – but you’ve got to do it your own way, if you want to try and beat them.

“That’s been Dan and Eric’s sort of mantra from the beginning, from an aerodynamic and concept side of things. That’s the reality, which is why the cars do look quite different, if you look at a lot of the areas of the car.”

McCullough stressed that Fallows, Blandin and other new recruits integrated well with the team in 2022, with chief technical officer Andrew Green – who has now moved off the F1 project – playing a key role.

“This year’s car throughout last year was very much under Andrew Green’s leadership,” he said. “So he was getting Dan and Eric up to speed from a performance development and aero development side of things.

“They’ve largely been I think very happy with what they’ve seen, the tools, the people. We were onto a path even before those guys turned up, but they’ve just brought another level of experience and knowledge from two of the best teams, Mercedes and Red Bull.

“They just brought a lot of understanding and experience from there that has just helped evolve how we work, and that relentless push.

“I think a lot of it is about creating that atmosphere to give that creative thinking which Dan and Eric have been…