Red Bull’s rivals were delighted over the Monaco Grand Prix weekend when images of the Red Bull floor design were obtained in the wake of Sergio Perez’s crash in qualifying.
A number of outfits made sure to conduct a deep analysis of the Red Bull design to try to better understand how the RB19 is such a dominant car.
But while some may be tempted to copy elements of the Red Bull floor in a bid to find more speed, Aston Martin is sceptical about potential benefits from doing so.
In fact, its technical director Dan Fallow thinks that this area requires such careful optimisation that small detail changes may not be right for every car – which is why he thinks it is critical Aston Martin keeps doing its own thing.
“We have our own philosophies and we have our own ways of approaching things,” explained Fallows. “And really there's a lot of optimisation in things like the floor.
“The reason that you see the details on the surface is because we'll spend a huge amount of time trying to optimise these surfaces. So it's important for us that we carry on our development path.
“We think it is providing a rich seam of development. We've seen another update on that [in Canada] so it's important for us that we use that going forward.”
But while the Red Bull floor images may not prompt any specific design changes at Aston Martin, Fallows says that seeing the photos still had some value.
Asked by Autosport if there had been any surprises from them, Fallows said: “Not any surprises, but I think it's always interesting to see what other people have done.
“We are all facing the same sort of problems from an aerodynamic point of view and it's interesting to see what other people's solutions are to that. So I think it's not really surprising; it is more just interesting.”
Aston Martin introduced changes to its floor at the Canadian GP as part of a pretty major upgrade package.
But Fallows said that while the Montreal tweaks looked very different, the team had made other equally big steps earlier in the year that were not so obvious.
“It's physically a very big update,” he said. “But in truth, there are things that we've done to the car up to now which are also quite significant.
“We are trying to put consistent developments on the car, rather than wait for a few races and then have a big update. While visually it was the most different, it's not necessarily the biggest in terms of performance. Although hopefully it will be a step.”
