Inter-team collaboration became a major talking point at the end of the 2023 season amid concerns from rivals regarding the close working relationship between sister squads Red Bull and AlphaTauri.
An aggressive late run of upgrades lifted AlphaTauri from last to eighth in the points, with the FIA moving to confirm both were respecting rules governing parts and intellectual property sharing.
This followed AlphaTauri switching to use the Red Bull wind tunnel ahead of the 2022 season. Meanwhile, Aston Martin has recently completed construction of its own wind tunnel, having previously used the facility of power unit supplier Mercedes.
Explaining how that relationship was managed, Aston Martin performance director Tom McCullough noted that even separate access doors were needed to ensure confidentiality.
Asked by Autosport to reveal the preventative measures required, he said: “The FIA are pretty strict and do a lot of inspections and all that stuff.
“Dominic Harlow [head of F1 technical audit for the governing body] comes and visits the teams.
“But for us with Mercedes, it is absolutely shut down to one, open to the other. 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.”
Source: Autosport