Spanish Grand Prix – Espionage: Red Bull tries to tighten the noose on Aston Martin

The ‘Green Red Bull’ case continues to stir the Spanish Grand Prix paddock, and it doesn’t date from Thursday, the day photos of the new Aston Martin sidepods began circulating . “The FIA ​​caught our eye earlier this week, revealed Christian Horner, team principal of Red Bull Racing. They told us : ‘There’s another car that looks remarkably like yours‘. It is not fair and it is totally unacceptable if there has been a transfer of intellectual property. It would be a criminal offense because intellectual property is the lifeblood of a team. We invest millions.”

Inevitably, the family resemblance between the Aston Martin AMR22 and the Red Bull RB18 made one think of a copy of a technician, who would have seen the profile in Milton Keynes and imported it to Silverstone. And more precisely Dan Fallows, moved from the direction of the Aerodynamics department at Red Bull to the technical direction at Aston Martin. What the International Automobile Federation hastened to verify without finding evidence, as indicated via a press release on Friday.

“There are always similarities”

After 15 years of good and loyal service at Red Bull Racing, Dan Fallows officially took up his post on April 2 at Aston Martin, after a waiting period known as “gardening leave”; an agreement between all the teams aimed at slowing down the circulation of secrets and know-how from one company to another.

“Dan joined us from Red Bull only last month.supported Lance Stroll, in Montmelo. There’s no way this (note: the pontoons) was done in a month. This has been planned and developed over the past few months.” What The Race is convinced of. For the British site, the evolution of the AMR22 was already under study at Aston Martin in mid-2021.

What Sebastian Vettel, the other Aston Martin driver, confirmed. “There are always similaritiespleaded the quadruple world champion, who arrived at the Greens in early 2021. The two concepts (of pontoons) were in people’s minds this winter, otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible. We kept the door open.”

“Data uploaded to Red Bull”

No longer embarrassed by the first copy of Mercedes he made in 2020 when the team was called Racing Point, Andrew Green did not disassemble, explaining that he had had the same idea as the team. ‘Adrien Newey and Frenchman Pierre Waché. “We were on two tracks, and it was not a shock but a surprise to see Red Bull come up with a similar concept.“said the technical director of the Greens, with aplomb.

After five weekends of racing, the Silverstone designer, replaced at the beginning of April by Dan Fallows as technical director, said the team had realized the stalemate it had found itself in during pre-season testing and that t had decided to introduce a new pontoon profile for the sixth round of the World Cup.

What we strongly doubt at Red Bull Racing. “The FIA ​​has checked all of this and it seems to be the case (that there was no transfer of information), but we are carrying out our own investigation to see if data has not leaked”Pierre Waché told Formula1.nl.

Helmut Marko took the suspicion further by telling Motorsport-Magazin.com: “We only know that data was downloaded (at the Red Bull factory); what happened to it we cannot say. We cannot prove that it was used.”

Red Bull Racing has no evidence against Dan Fallows but it is not only looking for him but – it is said in the paddock – on two other technicians.