Last season, Mercedes and Aston Martin went to great lengths to ensure that they did not cross paths when using the same wind tunnel. The two teams are now competing on the track, but they once shared the same wind tunnel facilities. The rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso is well-known, and their respective teams wanted to avoid any awkward encounters. This involved carefully planning their schedules and even going so far as to use the tunnel at different times of day. It’s clear that the teams wanted to avoid any conflict, even if it meant going to extreme lengths to do so.
Tom McCullough, the performance director for Aston Martin, has revealed the extreme measures taken to ensure that the team’s data remained confidential when using the same wind tunnel as Mercedes. The FIA has strict rules in place to ensure that data is not shared between teams, and these rules were closely followed by both Aston Martin and Mercedes. The teams used separate access doors to the wind tunnel and had strict timetables in place to ensure there was no overlap in usage. McCullough’s comments show the level of detail and attention that goes into maintaining confidentiality in F1.
In addition to the separate access doors and timetables, Aston Martin and Mercedes also used different people to run the wind tunnel sessions. This was all part of a robust confidentiality agreement between the two teams. The FIA takes this issue very seriously, and they were satisfied that both teams were complying with the rules. The topic of inter-team collaboration was brought into the spotlight at the end of last season, when concerns were raised about the relationship between Red Bull and AlphaTauri. However, the FIA confirmed that both teams were operating within the rules.
