Red Bull chief Marko questions legality of Alonso’s car in Bahrain

Red Bull chief Helmut Marko has questioned the legality of Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin after the Spaniard’s stunning podium finish at the Bahrain Grand Prix. Alonso’s sensational drive to P3 was the story of the first weekend of an F1 season that was unsurprisingly dominated by Red Bull and reigning champion Max Verstappen. 

Alonso had tempered expectations before lights out in Bahrain but rolled back the years with brilliant overtakes on old foe Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz to fight his way into the podium positions. 

Veteran Alonso took a gamble when deciding to leave Alpine for Aston Martin last season but the British team has made huge progress emerging from the midfield after also clocking impressive times in pre-season testing with their new AMR23 challenger.  

But Aston Martin are also being mocked for the striking similarities with the AMR23 and Red Bull’s title-winning RB18 vehicle from last year. 

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Red Bull’s former aerodynamics chief Dan Fallows is now Aston Martin’s technical director, and has been credited with implementing the changes that have seen the surge in performance with a Red Bull-styled car.

Sergio Perez, who finished P2 in Bahrain, even joked that “it’s nice to see three Red Bull cars on the podium!” as he was joined by Alonso. But Red Bull’s advisor Marko is unsure whether the so-called “copying” tactics prevalent in Aston Martin’s design should be permitted. 

“It’s true that what Fallows had in his head cannot be erased,” Marko told Servus TV. “Copying the focus is not prohibited, but can you copy in such detail without having documentation of our car? We had three Red Bulls on the podium, only the last one with a different engine.”

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Red Bull boss Christian Horner, meanwhile, couldn’t resist his own cheeky dig as he claimed to be “flattered” to see a different version of his old car back on the grid in the guise of Aston Martin.

“I think it demonstrates to all the teams that it’s possible,” Horner said. “So, they’ve obviously done a good job over the winter. They say imitation is the biggest form of flattery, and it’s good to see the old car going so well.

“I think that it’s flattering to see the resemblance of that car to ours, so it was great to see the three of them on the podium.”

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