F1 teams will always copy the 'fastest car', says Williams in a nod to Red Bull

Williams technical director François-Xavier Demaison spoke in a press conference during the F1 Brazilian GP weekend. He stated that it is impossible for smaller teams to copy the technical ideas of the frontrunners given the competition and regulation changes they have to face.

He said:

"I mean, already we’ve seen many cars try to go in that direction. So I'll be surprised if not more and more cars are heading in the same direction. You can't avoid it. It's motorsport. You always copy the fastest car. That's Formula 1."

F1 has had a history of dominating cars being replicated one way or the other by slower teams. Demaison is positive that this will sooner or later lead to cars that look almost identical across the grid.

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F1 not new to the copying of faster cars

Numerous F1 seasons have seen teams copying the concepts of other teams. Sometimes it has ended up with teams fighting off each other because of the plagiarism in their cars. Such was the case with Aston Martin and Red Bull this season.

Aston Martin and Red Bull sidepod controversy - 2022

During the initial races of the season, Aston Martin's pace was making them fall back on the grid almost all of the time. However, when the team made their way to Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix, their AMR22 was in very different shape.

The upgrades were seemingly different, but there was one major issue: they were stunningly similar to Red Bull's sidepods. This infuriated Red Bull and they asked the F1 officials to step in. However, there was no charge against the team.

Racing Point dubbed as the 'Pink Mercedes' - 2020

The team also had some trouble for copying faster cars before they were rebranded from Racing Point. Back in 2020, their car had a remarkable resemblance to the 2019 championship-winning Mercedes W10.

It was revealed that the team had copied the car using photographs. The brake duct was copied when they bought the intellectual property from them in 2019, a practice that was banned in the 2020 season.

While some engineers like Demaison believe copying is part of the sport, Paul Monaghan of Red Bull said cars will not have identical appearances so soon. He stated that with the regulation changes coming in, it is impossible for all the teams to have the same solution at once.