Why Red Bull clone criticisms of Aston’s F1 challenger are invalid
At the start of the season, senior Red Bull figures openly claimed the new Aston Martin was a copy of the 2022 championship-winning RB18. As MATT KEW reveals, while such accusations are empty bluster, the truth is that there is a profound Red Bull influence – just not in the way you might expect…
Let the record show that when Aston Martin whipped the covers off its 2023 challenger way back on 13 February, claims the team might have simply copied Red Bull were far thinner on the ground. It was an extremely convincing testing display that ignited the gamesmanship as rivals began to insinuate last year’s title-winning RB18 had been gone over with tracing paper. The furore only intensified when Fernando Alonso humbled Mercedes and Ferrari to kick off the campaign with consecutive podiums.
In the immediate aftermath of Alonso chalking third behind runaway victor Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez in the Bahrain opener, Perez twice joked Red Bull had finished 1-2-3. Then team advisor Helmut Marko pointedly asked: “Can you copy in such detail without having documentation of our car?” Perhaps persuaded by legal counsel, the Austrian soon backtracked from directly accusing Aston technical director Dan Fallows of leaving his previous Red Bull post in the summer of 2021 with a USB stick loaded with data. Apparently, Marko was “just joking”.
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