Innovation in Formula 1 is only ever one failure away from becoming a liability. Two heavy crashes in two race weekends have turned Red Bull’s cleverest 2026 upgrade into exactly that — and now Max Verstappen’s rear wing is a matter for the governing body.
According to Motorsport.com, the FIA has contacted both Red Bull and Ferrari — the only two teams to have raced rotating “Macarena” rear wings this season — requesting additional information to confirm the active-aero systems comply with every safety requirement. For supporters who watched Verstappen climb out of the gravel at Copse last Sunday, a week after he crashed out of qualifying at the Red Bull Ring, the intervention will feel overdue rather than heavy-handed.
Yet look closely at the sequence of events and this is about more than paperwork: a team that prides itself on engineering aggression must now prove its boldest concept is safe before F1 reaches its fastest track.
What Went Wrong With Max Verstappen’s Rear Wing?
Both failures involved the rear wing not closing properly, though Red Bull says the causes were different. “A different fault, let’s say, but the same outcome,” Verstappen said after Silverstone, having earlier described the situation as “super dangerous”, adding: “I was lucky in Austria, I was lucky here, but that’s why you get really fed up with it.”
Red Bull’s version of the rotating wing is the most aggressive on the grid. Developed since November 2025 and introduced at the Miami Grand Prix, it rotates by up to 160 degrees — in the opposite direction to Ferrari’s design, which turns through as much as 270 degrees — and creates the largest active-aerodynamic opening in the field. Ferrari has suffered no failures with its equivalent; Red Bull has had two, both on Verstappen’s car, and team principal Laurent Mekies accepted the blame sat squarely with the team.
Motorsport.com reports that the FIA’s request centres on compliance checks, including the rule that the wing flap must complete its transition between positions within 400 milliseconds. An outright ban on the concept — for this season or 2027 — is described as an extreme scenario that is not currently on the cards, and the enquiry does not extend to McLaren, which has built its own rotating wing but has yet to run it competitively.
Will Red Bull Park The Rotating Wing At Spa?
Mekies has promised a forensic response. “We are going to review the full area to make sure we leave zero chance for that to happen again,” he said — and when The Race asked whether that could mean reverting to the conventional rear wing used by every team other than Red Bull and Ferrari, he refused to rule it out: “We will do whatever is necessary to be on the safe side… we have all the options open.”
The stakes at Spa-Francorchamps on July 17-19 could hardly be higher. Under the 2026 regulations the Belgian circuit is one of the most energy-starved venues on the calendar, making straight-line drag reduction — the Macarena wing’s entire reason for existing — enormously valuable at a track where energy management has not been a Red Bull strength this season. Parking the wing would be a measurable performance sacrifice at the worst possible venue.
But the alternative is worse. A third wing-induced crash would be a sporting and safety disaster for a team already navigating intense speculation over Verstappen’s future — and it would come just one week after Isack Hadjar’s fifth place at Silverstone offered an uncomfortable contrast to Verstappen’s gravel-trap exit.
The message from Milton Keynes ahead of Belgium is clear: the Macarena wing races at Spa only if Red Bull can prove to itself — and now to the FIA — that it will never fail again. Anything less, and pragmatism must beat performance.
