One of the most extensive updates seen at Barcelona on Friday was from the Aston Martin team, which have radically changed the sidepods of the AMR22, abandoning the concept of long and full-width sides that had characterised this car since its launch. The work carried out by the team's aerodynamicists, led by Dan Fallows, also involved a relocation of the radiators, to allow for the overall re-profiling of the sidepods, which now slope strongly towards the rear. In fact, this section of the AMR22 is visually an apparent clone of the Red Bull RB18, and it is no coincidence that Fallows transferred from the Milton Keynes team to Aston Martin to fill a similar role. He was announced as an Aston Martin employee back in June 2021, but began his new role on 2 April 2022 after a lengthy gardening leave period.
Aston Martin can use the ideas, but fundamental restrictions remain
In essence, it is easy to deduce that he brought with him the ideas that he had already explored before leaving Red Bull. After Fallows left, these ideas were then adopted by his former team to design the RB18. A direct transfer of intellectual property to a rival team, however, without Red Bull's permission, would be a violation of the regulations. It should be added that there will still be fundamental differences under the bodywork of the cars. The chassis would have been a limiting factor that Aston Martin Engineering Director Luca Furbatto had to consider in this latest evolution of the AMR22's aerodynamic concept. In any case, to extinguish any controversy and rumours regarding the alleged "cloning" of the RB18, or at least partial cloning, the FIA issued a statement. In this statement, they explained in detail each step of the evolution of this car, and confirmed that it passed the FIA's checks in full and with open cooperation from the Silverstone team. Each design step, from the preliminary drawings to the production drawings, for the creation of the new components, passed the FIA checks on intellectual property. In short, it looks like a clone, but it isn't. Case closed.
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