Red Bull Claims ‘Very Wide of the Mark’ over Aston Martin’s Spain Updates – Andrew Green

Andrew Green, the Chief Technical Officer at the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team, has dismissed concerns over the legality of the updates brought to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya this weekend, particularly surrounding the similarities compared to Oracle Red Bull Racing’s RB18.

Red Bull has questioned how the AMR22 is so similar to their own car following the updates brought to the car for the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, with Christian Horner commenting that it could have been possible that their intellectual property had been used following the arrival at Aston Martin of several former Red Bull employees.

But Green says the car has been months in the making, with designs going back well before the likes of Dan Fallows arrived at Aston Martin, and the FIA were happy with the way the updates came about.

“I don’t know what these accusations are that Red Bull are talking about,” Green is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “All I can say is that at no stage did we ever receive any data from any team or anyone.

“The FIA came in and did a thorough investigation, examined all the data leading up in the history of this car, they interviewed all the people involved and concluded that it was completely independent development.

“To that point where you were talking about potential employees, this car was conceived in the middle of last year as a dual route with the launch car, and the majority of the releases were made before anybody from Red Bull even turned up. So I think the accusations are very wide of the mark.”

Green says there is unhappiness within Aston Martin around Red Bull’s claims, particularly when the FIA have already given them the all-clear about the legality of the updates.

“[I’m] disappointed, especially with the fact that the FIA has done a statement in respect to the car,” Green added. “They have come in and looked and then declared that it’s all legitimate independent work.

“They’re the ones who see all the data, they’re the ones who not just for us but for all the teams, they’re the only ones who can make the judgement, and by regulation they’re obliged to make a judgment on it. For me, that’s the end of it.“

Green admitted Aston Martin initially went the wrong way when it came to the design of their car having had two concept designs in the initial stages, but they have now gone the same way Red Bull did having seen how strong the RB18 has been in the opening part of the season.

“If you look at the development of the car that is sitting out there right now, you’ll see that this has all happened towards the end of last year before we’ve seen anybody,” he said.  “We were on a dual path.

“And it came as a shock, but also a surprise, that Red Bull came out with a similar concept, as well. But I think that just reinforced our feeling at the time that, of the two paths that that we had open to us, we’d gone the wrong way. And I think that was confirmation of that.”