Formula 1: Red Bull accuse Aston Martin of copying car design

Red Bull questioned whether any of their intellectual property had been stolen, after accusing Aston Martin of copying their car.

This weekend's Spanish Grand Prix will see an upgrade of the car by Aston Martin which bears a striking resemblance to Red Bull's design.

The idea that their intellectual property might have been used was a grave concern.

The FIA confirmed that it was legitimate independent work, according to the company.

Red Bull have not yet responded to the conclusions of the governing body.

Red Bull are competing in the world championship with a team from Italy.

The Red Bulls' bodywork design features a stepped ramp on the top bodywork and heavily undercut sidepods.

Red Bull's Christian Horner said he was concerned because of the number of Red Bull staff members who had left to work for other teams.

Dan Fallows, the former head of aerodynamics at Red Bull, was hired as the technical director of the team in April after a settlement between the teams.

The biggest form of flattery is copying, and it is quite a challenge to get your team to come up with a very close-looking clone of our car.

If any intellectual property had changed hands, what would we be worried about?

That is where we rely on the FIA to do their job, they research, they have all the access and we will be relying on them heavily to ensure that no Red Bull intellectual property has found its way into that car.

The spokesman said that they shared details of the update with the technical people.

The update was generated as a result of legitimate independent work in accordance with the technical regulations, after analyzing the data and the processes used to create it.

It is not the first time that Aston Martin has caused controversy by copying another car.

They were accused of producing a replica of the Mercedes in 2020 when they were competing as Racing Point.

Racing Point was docked 15 points and fined 400,000 euros for breaking the rules and illegally copying the brake ducts of the Mercedes, after protests from rival teams.