{"id":299890,"date":"2023-12-20T09:24:34","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T09:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/?p=299890"},"modified":"2023-12-20T09:24:34","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T09:24:34","slug":"hamilton-and-alonsos-teams-go-to-extreme-lengths-to-avoid-wind-tunnel-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/racing\/f1\/hamilton-and-alonsos-teams-go-to-extreme-lengths-to-avoid-wind-tunnel-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamilton and Alonso’s teams go to extreme lengths to avoid wind tunnel meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mercedes and Aston Martin went to extreme lengths to avoid crossing paths while sharing the same wind tunnel last season, it has been revealed. The Silver Arrows are currently working hard to give Lewis Hamilton a title-winning car next year, while Fernando Alonso will have high hopes of challenging for regular podium finishes with Aston Martin.<\/p>\n

Mercedes have been supplying Aston Martin’s power units since the historic British outfit returned to the F1 grid three seasons ago. The two teams also shared a wind tunnel before Aston Martin built their own facility at their Silverstone headquarters earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Plenty of measures were taken to ensure that paths were not crossed when the teams were using the same wind tunnel for testing at Mercedes’ base. Aston Martin performance director Tom McCullough has revealed that even separate access doors were required to guarantee the appropriate level of confidentiality.<\/p>\n

He told Motorsport.com: “The FIA are pretty strict and do a lot of inspections and all that stuff. Dominic Harlow [head of F1 technical audit] comes and visits the teams. But for us with Mercedes, it is absolutely shut down to one, open to the other.<\/p>\n

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“Different access doors, different people running the sessions. So, I think from a confidentiality [point of view], obviously the relationship we have with Mercedes is very robust from that side. The FIA, that’s their job to police all that.”<\/p>\n

Inter-team collaboration became a major talking point at the end of last season amid concerns over the working relationship between Red Bull and sister team AlphaTauri. A late run of upgrades saw the latter jump from last to eighth in the Constructors’ Championship standings, with the FIA later confirming that both teams were respecting rules governing intellectual property sharing.<\/p>\n

The two entities are set to have even closer ties from 2024 onwards, with AlphaTauri having been widely tipped to change their name to Racing Bulls next year.<\/p>\n