Mercedes and Aston Martin have been sharing the same wind tunnel in recent years.
Mercedes and Aston Martin went to extreme lengths to avoid crossing paths while sharing the same wind tunnel last season, it has been revealed. The Silver Arrows are currently working hard to give Lewis Hamilton a title-winning car next year, while Fernando Alonso will have high hopes of challenging for regular podium finishes with Aston Martin.
Mercedes has been Aston Martin’s power unit supplier ever since the legendary British team made a comeback to the Formula One grid three seasons ago. Prior to Aston Martin constructing their own facility at their Silverstone headquarters earlier this year, the two teams also shared a wind tunnel.
At Mercedes’ base, numerous precautions were taken to guarantee that paths did not cross when the teams used the same wind tunnel for testing. According to Tom McCullough, director of performance at Aston Martin, in order to ensure the proper degree of secrecy, even separate access doors were needed.
“The FIA are pretty strict and do a lot of inspections and all that stuff,” he told Motorsport.com. The head of F1 technical audit, Dominic Harlow, pays the teams a visit. However, with Mercedes, it is completely open to one and closed to the other.
distinct entry points and session facilitators. Thus, in my opinion, our relationship with Mercedes is clearly very strong from a confidentiality standpoint. It is the FIA’s responsibility to oversee everything.”
At the conclusion of the previous season, inter-team cooperation gained a lot of attention due to worries about Red Bull and sister team AlphaTauri’s working relationship. The latter went from last to eighth in the Constructors’ Championship standings after a late run of upgrades, and the FIA later verified that both teams were abiding by the rules pertaining to intellectual property sharing.
With AlphaTauri widely expected to rebrand as Racing Bulls in 2024, the two organizations are expected to have even closer ties from that point on.
McCullough continued, “The way they are at the moment, maybe as a pair of teams, they haven’t exploited that as much as the regulations allow.” in reference to the relationship between the two Red Bull teams. All can be requested to be examined by [the FIA]. When the FIA comes to inspect, you must be completely honest.
“They carry out numerous inspections. Since I’m sure people are looking at it, they’ll be all over that. It appears from the outside that [AlphaTauri] followed their own aero development philosophy. In any case, there’s a lot of convergence going on.
“Perhaps their strategy is to simply “buy everything you can within the regulations” before evolving into a philosophy. The same wind tunnel is being used by them. They will most likely be utilizing the same CFD data. Therefore, there’s a chance they can work with it and make it more competitive if it looks similar.”
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