Red Bull begin leak investigation as Aston Martin plead innocence in sidepod debate

Red Bull have begun an internal investigation to ascertain whether there has been a leak of intellectual property that has led to Aston Martin’s new sidepod design, though the team in green has denied any such information was received by them.

The Spanish Grand Prix weekend always attracts interest around car updates, with every team bar Haas bringing new parts to bolt onto their machines this time around.

This year’s race carries extra intrigue, too, given the new era of cars and high development rate, with us now having a good idea of whose designs have done well and whose needed some work from the first quarter of the campaign.

Among the changes on show here in Barcelona this weekend, Aston Martin revealed an overhauled sidepod design, which left some wondering whether it was too similar to Red Bull’s for it to be just a coincidence.

Indeed, some have wondered whether foul play is at work but the FIA has cleared Aston Martin for the design, and said that there’s no flouting of copying rules in this instance.

Even so, the debate isn’t going away in Barcelona and on Saturday morning, in the Teams’ press conference, Aston Martin’s Andy Green and then Red Bull’s Pierre Wache later on were asked about the controvesy.

On Aston’s side, Green protested the team’s innocence and explained that this design had actually been in the pipeline since last year, but they had just opted to go with a different concept to begin this campaign:

“I don’t know what these accusations are that Red Bull are talking about.

“All I can say is that at no stage did we ever receive any data from any team or anyone.

“This car was conceived in the middle of last year as a dual route with the launch car, and the majority of the releases were made before