Aston Martin has revealed that using the wind tunnel of its engine supplier Mercedes required drastic protective measures to safeguard the confidentiality of each outfit’s development work.
As part of team owner Lawrence Stroll’s significant investment in his team, Aston Martin completed earlier this year the construction of its own wind tunnel at its base at Silverstone, marking a significant milestone in its F1 journey.
The new facility, which is one of the most advanced in the world, will provide the team with the resources and data it needs to develop its designs.
By giving Aston greater flexibility and control over its aero programme, the wind tunnel will help the team optimize its cars for performance and efficiency. This, in turn, should lead to improved results on the track.
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But prior to the completion of its own tool, Aston Martin had been using Mercedes' facility. However, according to the outfit’s performance director Tom McCullough, this arrangement required the teams to take extra precautions to protect their designs and intellectual property, including using separate access doors to ensure secrecy.
“The FIA are pretty strict and do a lot of inspections and all that stuff. Dominic Harlow [head of F1 technical audit for the governing body] comes and visits the teams,” McCullough explained, quoted by motorsport.com
“But for us with Mercedes, it is absolutely shut down to one, open to the other. Different access doors, different people running the sessions.
“So, I think from a confidentiality [point of view], obviously the relationship we have with Mercedes is very robust from that side. The FIA, that's their job to police all that.”
Lately in F1, inter-team collaboration has emerged as a hot topic, triggered by concerns among rivals regarding the unusually close working relationship between sister teams Red Bull and AlphaTauri.
The Faenza-based outfit’s strong form in the closing stages of the 2023 season, during which it introduced several significant upgrades on its AT04, sparked accusations of excessive collaboration with Red Bull Racing.
Both teams were cleared of any wrong-doing by the FIA, but the situation served as a reminder of the potential for inter-team collaboration to blur the lines of fair competition in F1.
McCullough offered his opinion on the controversial topic.
“Obviously, the regulations have changed over the years,” commented the Aston engineer. “The way they are at the moment, maybe as a pair of teams, they haven't exploited that as much as the regulations allow…
“[The FIA] can ask to look at everything. You've got to be fully transparent when the FIA come in and inspect. They do a lot of inspections.
“I'm sure they'll be all over that [AlphaTauri-Red Bull dynamic] because I'm sure people are looking at it.
“On the outside, it looks as though [AlphaTauri] have done their own aero development philosophy.
“There’s a lot of convergence happening anyway. Maybe they’re just going for ‘buy everything you can do within the regulations’ [gearbox, front and rear suspension] and then develop along a philosophy.
“They’re using the same wind tunnel; they’ll probably be using the same CFD stuff. There’s a chance therefore that, if it looks similar, they can start working with it and making it more competitive.”
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