Mercedes technical director addresses growing concerns about the AlphaTauri-Red Bull relationship

Mercedes technical director James Allison has addressed the growing concerns around the relationship that AlphaTauri and Red Bull enjoy and feels there aren't things to be concerned about. Unlike every other team on the grid, the Austrian brand has two teams on the grid.

While Red Bull came into existence in 2005, its sister team AlphaTauri (then called Torro Rosso) came into existence in 2006. The two teams have been part of the F1 grid for more than 15 years and there hasn't been much of a backlash for either of them. The concern has been growing recently with comments from Helmut Marko that the two teams would try to share as much information as possible within the rules.

That has led to teams like McLaren questioning if one brand could have ownership in two different teams. Mercedes technical director James Allison however is not too bothered on this subject and feels that the transfer of information is very stringent in F1 between two teams. Talking to Motorsport.com, he said:

“I’m not entirely sure what the nature of the relationships between those two teams is, but I am clear on what the rules are. And it is that other than the very limited part of the car where you are permitted to supply parts, and therefore a certain amount of technical data alongside those parts, in every other respect the rules are very tight about not passing on anything that could be regarded as intellectual property from one team to another."

He added:

"The way that rule is written is very broad and very powerful, and it pretty much makes any communication not permitted.”

Mercedes director expands on the team's relationship with Aston Martin/Racing Point/Force India in the past

The Mercedes director further expanded on this as he explained how the German brand also had some kind of sporting data carrying over with the Silverstone-based squad, now called Aston Martin. There has been however crackdown on such a relationship. He said:

“If two teams have a strong relationship with each other, it can only really be a strong commercial relationship. It cannot be a strong technical or a strong sporting relationship because the rules forbid that."

He added:

“In the past it was more open, and the relationship that Mercedes enjoyed with the team that is now Aston Martin, at the time that was a relationship that permitted much greater freedom than it does today. In response to that relationship, the rules were tightened up substantially to mean that you cannot really have a technical or a sporting relationship."

The conversations around the Red Bull/AlphaTauri relationship are going to gain momentum as the season progresses, especially if we end up with a scenario where the Faenza-based team makes a huge leap in performance.