19 May 2023 , 13:56
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A top Aston Martin chief declared it isn't possible for his team to copy Red Bull's car designs – because of their existing partnership with Mercedes.
After years of mediocrity, the Silverstone-based team has made a huge performance leap and has been getting the better of Mercedes and Ferrari so far this season. And that improvement happens to have coincided with some staff members making the switch from Red Bull.
Most notably, Dan Fallows left to become Aston Martin's technical director, while his deputy has worked for all of the 'big three' in the past. Those moves, coupled with the changes made to Aston's 2022 car which earned it the "Green Bull" moniker, have sparked some suggestions that the team has been following Red Bull's lead in terms of design.
But the team's engineering director Luca Furbatto claims it would not be possible to copy the RB19's design. Speaking to RacingNews365, the former Alfa Romeo design chief pointed to his team's Mercedes agreement as the reason why.
He said: "Obviously there are discussions – some are provocations in a way – but, ultimately, we are using a Mercedes power unit, gearbox and rear suspension. In a way, those are constraints for us. A like-for-like copy, in reality, is not possible because the two cars are fundamentally two different architectures.
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"It is fair to say Dan and Eric have brought a different approach to our aerodynamics and that in terms of lap time is probably a sizeable step. But if you look at last season, the second half of last season, we had already made significant improvements.
Dan Fallows spent years with Red Bull before joining Aston Martin as technical director (Getty Images)"Obviously, we work on areas like weight, compliances, weight distribution. For example, the drivers were not particularly happy... you can see on onboard footage there was a lot of vibration and so on. I think it is fair to say the new car is a result of a team effort, we really started from a blank sheet of paper and the improvements are 360 degrees, really."
Meanwhile, Aston Martin could soon be working with another name familiar to Red Bull. The Honda brand has been working with the defending champions for several years, but that partnership will soon come to an end now with the Ford Motor Company getting involved instead.
According to The Race, the manufacturer will likely partner with Aston Martin. And this could well lead to the Japanese brand immediately competing against their former partners, given the progress Aston have made in terms of car competitiveness.