Aston Martin team principal, Mike Krack, has affirmed that the team sought approval from the FIA before introducing their new rear wing design at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The British side had previously brought a new concept to the Spanish Grand Prix, and it appeared to closely resemble the design of the Red Bull, which sparked controversy.
The sidepods were extremely similar to the Milton Keynes-based side’s, and team principal Christian Horner indicated that there had been an incursion of his squad’s “intellectual property” in the design of the new chassis.
Adviser Dr Helmut Marko went further, stating that he had “evidence that data has been downloaded,” and the whole situation led to an FIA investigation.
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Aston Martin insisted that they had started the design of the “green Red Bull” at the end of last year, and this was corroborated by the governing body, who cleared them of any wrongdoing.
Since then, McLaren have also introduced sidepods that look similar to the Milton Keynes-based team when they ran a new concept in Budapest.
Aston Martin chief technical officer, Andrew Green, described Red Bull’s allegations as “completely unfounded,” and he and his team have since been busy working on more new parts.
2022 has been a struggle for the Silverstone-based side who, while possessing solid race pace, have a poor qualifying car, and this did not improve in Hungary despite a new rear wing.
Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel qualifying 14th and 18th respectively, but the German climbed up to P10 as Stroll came home 11th.
That kind of results begs the question as to how much better Aston Martin’s season could have gone up to now if they had a car that could qualify well.
It is something they are doing their best to fix, and the new wing may play a part towards that as they continue to evolve the AMR22.
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The latest piece of innovation, which caught a fair bit of attention in Hungary due to his similarity to last year’s rear wing, was something Aston Martin made sure was within the regulations before they introduced it.
“When developing a wing or developing ideas, you normally do not wait until the last moment before you show it,” Krack told RacingNews365.com.
“So, we were in touch with the FIA, all along the development, to understand if this is something that will be accepted, and it finally was, so that was for us the moment where we said, ‘okay, we go for it’.
“I think there is nothing special at the end of the day, it’s an interpretation of the rules and we developed a wing, according to that, in conjunction with FIA, and that’s it basically.
“I’m not concerned about supermajority or anything. If the rules are changing, or these kinds of designs are not allowed, we will cope with it.”
Alpine sporting director Alan Permane has recently affirmed that he expects teams to start copying Aston Martin’s design in Singapore, where downforce is a requisite.