- Red Bull debuted a Ferrari-inspired Macarena rear wing at Silverstone on April 22.
- Verstappen’s RB22 carries a rotating flap delivering up to 160 degrees of movement.
- Miami Grand Prix will reveal whether the gamble pays off for Mekies’ struggling team.
Red Bull ran a heavily updated RB22 at Silverstone on Wednesday, April 22, with the headline addition being the team’s own version of Ferrari’s rotating “Macarena” rear wing.
Max Verstappen drove the car during the filming day, which gave the Milton Keynes-based team its first chance to gather data on the new package ahead of the Miami Grand Prix.
The update marks a significant shift in approach. Red Bull, long considered the sport’s aerodynamic leader, has now openly drawn from Ferrari’s playbook on one of the most radical technical ideas of the new regulations era.
The origin of the Macarena
Ferrari introduced the concept during the second week of pre-season testing in Bahrain earlier this year.
The rear wing flap on Lewis Hamilton’s SF-26 rotated completely upside down when activated, rather than simply flattening like the old DRS system.
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur named it the “Macarena,” a nod to the 1990s dance.
Hamilton spoke about the wing before the Chinese Grand Prix in March, crediting the team for delivering it ahead of schedule.
“I’m so grateful for the team’s work, because it was actually supposed to arrive later down the line, and they worked really hard to develop it and get it brought here,” he said.
On the name, he added, “I don’t know if it has an official name. Someone said Macarena, and I have no idea why.”
Ferrari’s experience with the wing has not been straightforward, though. The team ran it for just five laps in Bahrain before leaving it off the car for the Australian season opener.
It reappeared briefly during free practice in Shanghai, but Hamilton spun in FP1, and the wing was shelved again. He later admitted it was “maybe a little bit premature” to race it at that stage.
Vasseur pointed to a lack of testing time as the core problem. “We didn’t put enough mileage on the rear wing,” he said after the Chinese Grand Prix weekend.
“With the system today, you have to do FP1 because you don’t have tests between the races.” The team was reportedly 95% confident in its reliability but decided the risk of a DNF outweighed the performance gain over Mercedes.
Why Red Bull made its move
Red Bull’s troubled start to the 2026 season pushed the team towards this change. The RB22 has scored just 16 points in three races, with unpredictable handling identified as the primary problem.
The team’s first power unit, developed in partnership with Ford, is reported to be competitive, but the chassis has let it down.
The cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian rounds earlier this month gave all teams an unexpected development window. Red Bull used it to overhaul the car.
Team principal Laurent Mekies has spoken openly about how much the team is banking on the Miami upgrade package.
On the Beyond the Grid podcast, Mekies framed Miami as a fresh start.
“I think it will be a bit like a second season launch when we are back at the track in Miami because, of course, every team is engaged in this massive development race,” he said.
He also cautioned against expecting overnight results.
“Does it mean you come to Miami and you have solved everything as a miracle? No,” he said. “What we would like to see is to have a car where our drivers can push again.”
Mekies made clear, however, that the mood inside the factory is not one of resignation.
“We are in full attack mode,” he said. “If you walk in Milton Keynes right now, there is fire in every single department.”
How Red Bull’s wing differs from Ferrari’s
The two designs share the same core aerodynamic idea, but their engineering is quite different.
According to Paolo Filisetti, the technical analyst at RacingNews365, Red Bull has kept its central vertical actuator as the main rotation mechanism.
The team has modified only the attachment points between the flap and endplates. Ferrari’s SF-26, by contrast, uses twin actuators built into the endplates on either side of the wing.
That twin-actuator system allows the SF-26’s flap to rotate more than 200 degrees, while Red Bull’s setup delivers roughly 110 to 120 degrees of movement in a single direction, per Filisetti.
ScuderiaFans, however, puts Red Bull’s rotation at approximately 160 degrees and notes the flap rotates in the opposite direction to Ferrari’s.
Red Bull’s approach trades maximum aerodynamic potential for faster development and simpler validation.
By keeping a central actuator and limiting the range of motion, the team has avoided the lengthy reliability programme Ferrari has had to work through.
Early internal estimates suggest the change could add between 5 and 10 km/h on the straights.
The bigger picture and looking ahead at Miami GP
The design does carry some trade-offs, though. PlanetF1.com technical editor Matt Somerfield reported during pre-season that rival teams had already looked at and rejected a Ferrari-style rotating wing.
Their concerns included a brief sail-like effect as the flap opens and closes, and a slower activation time compared to a conventional DRS-style system.
Red Bull’s narrower rotation range may reduce some of those issues, but the central actuator adds drag and turbulence that Ferrari’s endplate-mounted design avoids.
According to an early comparative analysis from RacingNews365, Red Bull may hold an edge in responsiveness.
A faster activation cycle could deliver more consistent aerodynamic gains, particularly on circuits with heavy braking zones and frequent opportunities for deployment.
The Miami sprint weekend will be the first real test. Whether the data from Silverstone holds up on a very different circuit remains the key question.
If the wing delivers what the early estimates promise, it could signal the start of Red Bull’s recovery.
If it does not, the team will at least know it took every option available during a season that, by its own admission, has gone wrong so far.
