Christian Horner and Red Bull Racing have hilariously mocked Aston Martin by drinking cans of Green Edition Red Bull, suggesting their competitors have copied their 2022 car design.
Red Bull team principal Horner and his staff have been seen on the pitwall with cans of the energy drink at the Spanish Grand Prix, in a reference to the new Aston Martin being dubbed a ‘green Red Bull’.
Aston Martin’s AMR22 challenger underwent a drastic redesign ahead of the Barcelona race in an attempt to make up for a poor start to the season.
Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel and teammate Lance Stroll have combined for just six points from the opening five racings, leaving their squad ninth in the constructors standings.
Now though, they’ve completely redesigned the sidepods of their car, radically changing their aerodynamic philosophy to one more similar to Red Bull’s RB18.
So similar in fact, that Max Verstappen’s team have noticed the lookalike, and joined in on the joke that Aston are now driving a ‘green Red Bull’.
Red Bull asked the sport’s governing body - the FIA - to investigate claims of copying, but Aston Martin have since been cleared of any wrongdoing.
A Red Bull spokesperson said: "While imitation is the greatest form of flattery, any replication of design would obviously need to comply with the FIA’s rules around ‘Reverse Engineering’.
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"However, should any transfer of IP have taken place that would clearly be a breach of regulations and would be a serious concern."
The early signs weren't ideal for Aston, however, with their best result in Friday practice in Spain an eighth place from Vettel in FP2.
This isn’t the first time Silverstone-based Aston have had to deal with claims of copying, with a previous iteration of the team, Racing Point, having their car named a ‘pink Mercedes’ in 2020.
On that occasion, Racing Point were docked 15 points and fined £359,000 for taking inspiration from the 2019 title winning Mercedes, but have avoided punishment this time round.
An FIA statement read: “The investigation, which involved CAD checks and a detailed analysis of the development process adopted by Aston Martin, confirmed that no wrongdoing had been committed, and therefore the FIA considers that the Aston Martin aerodynamic upgrades are compliant.
“Article 17.3 specifically defines and prohibits “Reverse Engineering”, i.e. the digital process of converting photographs (or other data) to CAD models, and prohibits IP transfer between teams, but equally, this Article permits car designs getting influenced by those of competitors, as has always been the case in Formula 1.
“In the analysis we carried out we confirmed that the processes followed by Aston Martin were consistent with this Article’s requirements.”
Aston Martin commented on the news, saying: “We have shared details of our update with the FIA technical people. Having analysed the data and the processes used to create the update, the FIA has now confirmed in writing that our update was generated as a result of legitimate independent work in accordance with the technical regulations.”
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