Mercedes technical director James Allison has played down fears of the technical collaboration between Red Bull and sister outfit AlphaTauri getting out of hand, a concern expressed by McLaren boss Zak Brown.
Last year, Red Bull motorsport boss Helmut Marko confirmed that AlphaTauri would leverage to the max its partnership with Red Bull, meaning that the team would acquire every part that it is authorized to have from the Milton Keynes-based outfit’s factory.
Furthermore, AlphaTauri has relocated personnel from Faenza to its UK based aerodynamics department in Bicester to achieve economies of scale.
"AlphaTauri is, from what I understand, moving to the UK which I think will benefit both teams," Brown said recently, expressing his worries about the close relationship between the two teams.
"This A/B team and co-ownership – which is a whole other level of A/B team – is of big concern, to ours and the health of the sport and the fairness of the sport," he argued.
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Despite Brown’s unfavourable assessment of the situation, Allison is putting his full faith in the sport’s regulations, emphasizing their clarity and tightness.
"I’m not entirely sure what the nature of the relationships between those two teams is, but I am clear on what the rules are," Allison told Motorsport.com.
"Other than the very limited part of the car where you are permitted to supply parts, and therefore a certain amount of technical data alongside those parts, in every other respect the rules are very tight about not passing on anything that could be regarded as intellectual property from one team to another.
"The way that rule is written is very broad and very powerful, and it pretty much makes any communication not permitted.
"If two teams have a strong relationship with each other, it can only really be a strong commercial relationship," he added.
"It cannot be a strong technical or a strong sporting relationship because the rules forbid that.”
Allison said that F1’s rules had been “tightened up substantially” precisely to restrict inter-team collaborations.
"In the past it was more open, and the relationship that Mercedes enjoyed with the team that is now Aston Martin, at the time was a relationship that permitted much greater freedom than it does today,” he said.
"In response to that relationship, the rules were tightened up substantially to mean that you cannot have a technical or a sporting relationship.
"There is not much mileage to seek a close relationship with another team from a technical point of view because it is not allowed."
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