After 2 weeks off from racing, F1’s back to racing. With this week’s race in Spain, a lot of the F1 teams have been brining some upgrades to their cars.
Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin, and some other teams have brought some pretty big upgrades to their cars. Mercedes have even introduced a new power unit for their cars in Spain, and Mercedes’ upgrades seem to have made a pretty big jump in the performance of their cars. Qualifying P4 and P5 for the Spanish GP, Mercedes seem to have a car that can go head to head with Ferrari’s.
Aston Martin’s Upgrades
A big talking point this weekend similarities between the updated Aston Martin and RedBull. Many have alleged that Aston Martin may have copied RedBull’s design. In particular, the same of the sidepod.
RedBull’s Team Principal Christian Horner has talked about this to the media.
“Imitation’s the biggest form of flattery at the end of the day. And it is no coincidence that we have had a few individuals who’ve transferred from RedBull in the winter and early part of this season. We see it up and down the paddock that individuals move from team to team after a gardening leave period. What individuals take in their head is fair game and is their knowledge.
Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel has commented on this topic as well.
“There are always similarities between cars. From the very beginning, thr possibility of switching to a different concept was kept open.”
Otmar Szafneur, the Team Principal of Alpine has a uniqur perspective about this. Although he has a neutral perspective about this, he used to be Aston Martin’s Team Principal.
And, although Aston Martin has brought some big upgrades for their cars, they don’t seem to have the pace that they need to compete strongly with other teams. Qualifying P16 and P18, they would have to extract the performance of the car even more to make it competitive.
