Red Bull heads to court over Fallows departure

Red Bull and exiting aero chief Dan Fallows have made their first court appearance regarding Fallows’ departure from the team.

Dan Fallows was announced as Aston Martin’s new Technical Director for 2022, back in June 2021.

Nonetheless, Red Bull indicated that they would not allow him to leave without serving an enforced period of notice. Fallows accepted the offer from Aston Martin, intending to start on January 1st, 2022.

Fallows’ contract with Red bull states that he must serve a six-month notice period, which will only be triggered by December 31st, 2022 at the earliest. With this, he won’t be eligible to join Aston Martin until 2023, on July 1st.

His appointment as Aston Martin Technical Director appears to be a breach of his contract, and given that construction on the 2022 car has already begun, Red Bull is keen to prevent the knowledge he gained while working with Adrian Newey’s technical departments from leaking to Aston Martin.

According to court documents from the hearing, Fallows was removed from the F1 side of the Red Bull organization and assigned to the development of a Red Bull road car. Following the demotion Fallows subsequently gave his notice two months later, requesting an immediate termination from Red Bull.

According to court records, he believes his notice period is unenforceable since it is “in restriction of trade.”

Despite Fallows’ examples of other ex-Red Bull employees who left without serving their full notice period, Red Bull declined his resignation, claiming that their jobs were not comparable to his.

The court hearing was set for December 17th, 2021. A decision is expected by the end of January, but Red Bull appears to be in good shape. The case will be heard in court from January 25th to January 28th, despite the fact that the judge has already denied Fallows’ application.