Red Bull is apparently not aiming for an in-depth investigation of the Aston Martin team, which introduced a new version of the AMR22 in Barcelona, which is strikingly similar to the Red Bull RB18, especially in the sidepod area. Motorsport consultant Helmut Marko revealed this in an interview with “Formel1.de”.
Marko originally stated in Barcelona on May 20 that there was “evidence that data had been downloaded” and thus really got “Copygate 2.0” rolling. Especially because Dan Fallows, now technical director, and six other engineers have switched from Red Bull to Aston Martin in recent months and there have been allegations of data theft.
But now Marko defuses his original accusation: “I said the data was downloaded. But I didn’t say where they went. That’s another factor.” He also states: “As long as we can’t prove anything, we won’t do anything about it.”
Marko admits: Red Bull can’t prove anything
Red Bull had announced an internal investigation to check data security, but Marko makes it clear that Aston Martin can currently “prove nothing specifically”. In addition, the motivation to conduct a time-consuming investigation against a competing team is manageable, “because we don’t see Aston Martin as a direct competitor,” says Marko.
What ultimately remains is a “clear resemblance”, according to the Austrian – an opinion that he by no means represents exclusively. “Sky” expert Timo Glock remains skeptical as to whether everything was really right: “Aston Martin’s statement is all well and good, but there are far too many coincidences for me.”
The fact that Aston Martin, according to its own statements, is pursuing two technical concepts in the summer of 2021, later decided on a path and then dug up the originally rejected concept again for Barcelona 2022, does not seem plausible to Glock: “Strangely enough, the Red Bull people migrated over just before that “, he wonders.
Aston Martin: This explains Vettel’s team
But Aston Martin remains “clearly” on the subject of data theft with a “no”. Team boss Mike Krack does not understand why the topic is still being discussed despite the long-completed FIA investigation in which Aston Martin was exonerated: “These are coincidences in this case. The FIA has also looked at it in detail.”
Krack explains in an interview with “Sky”: “We developed two different vehicle concepts from the middle of last year and decided on one concept. But we saw relatively early on that we couldn’t use the preferred concept due to ‘porpoising’.”
“Then there were several development loops with the first concept, and at some point we saw: ‘We’re not getting anywhere. We’re hitting a wall.’ So we had to tune the car very far from its performance optimum. And at a certain point we said, ‘Okay, we’ll go with the alternative concept that we had.'”
Does Aston Martin bring the copy at all?
This has been in use since Barcelona. Yield since then in two races: one championship point. “You can’t just copy a car and believe that it will then drive a second faster,” says Formula 1 expert Marc Surer at “Formel1.de”.
Incidentally, the topic may not be completely settled yet. Red Bull also has an interest in the case. Because if what Aston Martin did is still classified as legal by the FIA, then it could well be that the aerodynamics of AlphaTauri will be much more similar to those of Red Bull in the future.
Marko emphasizes: “We would like clarification on how far you can go, because we have a junior team, AlphaTauri. If you interpret that consistently, then significantly more cooperation with AlphaTauri should be allowed – or AlphaTauri should finally be much closer to Red technically be Bull Racing.”