Fallows not joining Aston Martin for ’years’

Aston Martin might not get its hands on new technical director Dan Fallows for "years", according to Red Bull boss Christian Horner.

On Friday, Red Bull shocked the Austrian GP paddock by announcing pre-emptively that Aston Martin has poached its long-time aerodynamics chief.

"Dan will not be departing until the conclusion of his contract", part of Red Bull’s press statement said.

In 2014, Fallows signed up to leave Red Bull and join McLaren, but it ended in a bitter legal dispute after the energy drink-owned team promised to promote him.

"We’ve got some tremendous talent," said Horner, "so it just frees up an opportunity for the next evolution.

"But Dan’s going to be with us for a while."

When asked how long that will be, the Red Bull chief added: "I’m not going to go into great detail, but it certainly won’t be within the next couple of years."

The fact that Red Bull - rather than Aston Martin - made the announcement had eyebrows raised in the paddock on Friday, but Horner insisted it was just a case of rumour-management.

"It’s a small paddock and when rumours start to circulate I’d rather our staff read it in a communication from the team rather than through the media," he said.

When asked about the same issue, Aston Martin boss Otmar Szafnauer said he was "grateful" to Red Bull for pre-empting the Fallows announcement.

"We were going to announce Dan in due course but we don’t control what Red Bull do. But I’m grateful that they announced Dan," he insisted.

"He’s a like-minded individual, he’s a high performer, he’s won world championships, he knows Seb, so we look forward to Dan joining."

As for when Fallows will actually start work at Silverstone, though, Szafnauer answered: "We’re still working on that."

"I think the important thing is that we get the right people," he explained. "You’d rather have the right people in your team as opposed to getting somebody very quickly and it doesn’t work out."

Szafnauer denied that the latest Fallows saga will echo the first one, when the 15-year team veteran ultimately decided to stay at Red Bull.

"It is 100 percent signed, sealed, delivered," he said. "Dan is coming. It’s just a matter of the timing."