Aston Martin claim copying Mercedes 'opened their eyes'

Aston Martin has claimed that copying Mercedes' design in 2020 has helped them better their own car and will help again in 2022. The team tried to replicate the design of the 2020 Mercedes car, which was highly dominant.

Back when the team was known as Racing Point, it was heavily criticized for its 2020 car. According to other teams, the car copied the Mercedes W10 which was highly dominant in the 2019 season. The Racing Point car was also dubbed the 'Pink Mercedes'.

The strategy also proved to be somewhat useful to the team as they often out-qualified teams such as Red Bull and Ferrari. The team then went on to score their first win in 2020.

Team technical officer Andrew Green thinks cloning the Mercedes has definitely 'opened their eyes' and hence has helped them build their 2022 car. He told The Race:

“It definitely opened our eyes to new ways of working – new concepts, new ideas. And it has enabled that thinking then to follow through to some degree on the 21’ car but the 2022 car definitely.”

Green defended the 2020 Racing Point despite the similarities to the Mercedes. He claims the team tried to understand why the German car was so dominant instead of blindly taking its design. He claimed anger from the rivals stemmed from the fact that Racing Point had suddenly found success. Green explained:

“What we did was look at the car and went about working out why that car was significantly quicker than everybody else. We did our own learning. There’s no shortcut to doing it. It’s not a copy, it’s developing a solution where you’ve got a rough idea of what you think the answer is, but you’ve still got to get there and it takes a lot of development and a lot of work to understand.”

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Mercedes reveal changes for their upcoming 2022 W13 car

With multiple reveals being teased on social media, Mercedes is all set to launch the highly-anticipated W13 car in 2022. The eight-time constructors' champions will be hoping to out-design competitors as they have done multiple times in the past.

As per reports, the new design will feature a silver livery. Fans are excited for the return to the iconic color the team has been associated with for years.

With Williams star George Russell all set to join the team in 2022, the team are apparently preparing a special steering wheel for the Briton, just as they have done with Lewis Hamilton in the past.

The new car will also reportedly feature a single-exhaust output instead of a double-exhaust pipe, which has been standard so far.

Despite huge expectations from the F1 community, only time will tell whether the Brackley-based team will be successful in creating yet another championship winning car.