The Spanish Grand Prix has sparked controversy in a specific garage: Aston Martin’s, precisely because those commanded by Lawrence Stroll have presented a completely renovated AMR22 that, coincidentally, resembles the Red Bull RB18 in excess.
From the creators of ‘the pink Mercedes’ comes… ‘the green Red Bull’ to Formula 1. As soon as the teams set out on their usual road to box of the FIA with their respective single-seaters at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in the days before the action on the track, all eyes were fixed on one in particular: the new AMR22B.
Why? Well, precisely because the rumored drastic change that they promised for his car left everyone with their mouths open. After the initial surprise, the comparisons (which are always hateful) began to fly over the pit lane and the paddock.
The great similarity between Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll’s new single-seater and the Red Bull has generated a stir that has concluded with the announcement that, after an exhaustive FIA investigationthe model of those of Lawrence Stroll is proper and legal.
Start interrupted
It was Andy Green himself who came out to give explanations: with development still open, the team opted for a specific version conditioned by the pouring. “The rebound stopped us”revealed the technical director of Aston Martin.
«He forced us to take the car out on the track with a configuration that was not intended. We have had to go higher than we would have liked, and that has cost us a lot of time per lap, ”she added.
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The FIA appeared between Tuesday and Wednesday at the aston martin factorybut they did not face any surprises, since the design they found had already been presented in the documentation sent months ago, in November 2021.
“If we had started the program after the first race, we would never have been able to carry two single-seaters of version B to BarcelonaGreen continued.
Dan Fallows, suspicion
After an eternal judgment between both formations, Dan Fallows, responsible for aerodynamics par excellence in Red Bull, finally changed colors a few days ago. The suspicion that his influence has permeated this new concept has no basis, since he joined in April.
“The values in the wind tunnel got better, and the amount of downforce we could get went up a lot. Later, a month later, we found we couldn’t go any further. We had to raise the car higher and higher as we increased the downforce and as a result the car stopped working as we intended, we were going backwards,” explained Green.
So, with the doubt that former Red Bull staff had leaked information about the RB18 to the British cleared up, Aston Martin has the green light to try its hand at a radically different design.
absolute tranquility
Even though the pontoons resemble those of Red Bull, Green says that the change in the location of the refrigeration that this enormous modification entails would not have been possible with a mere copy.
“We were able to show the FIA the CAD data and photos of our model in the wind tunnel in the fall of last year, showing that we did not copy anything. The chassis had to be made to allow for two different cooling systems. If we hadn’t, it would have been impossible to move to the new sidewall geometry,” he detailed.
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The dead end which ended up being the version used in the first 5 Grands Prix made them produce as few parts as possible to focus on version B, which was initially scheduled for Silverstone. However, the negative results encouraged them to step on the accelerator.
“Without this previous work, we would not have reached Barcelona. First we have to understand this new car. Now we won’t have to drive the car so low and stiff to generate enough downforce. Is a completely different approach to gain load, more suspension travel is more comfortable for the riders and better for the tyres,” he stated.
“The nose, wings and suspension are completely different from Red Bull”
“The nose, wings and suspension are completely different from Red Bull. For that reason alone you can see that not a copy. Ramp-shaped pontoons are not only seen on the Red Bull, but also on other cars,” Green concluded.
Source: Auto Motor und Sport