Ted Kravitz was drawn to Red Bull’s new Macarena rear wing after it made its first appearance during practice for the 2026 F1 Miami Grand Prix, noting the significant drop in drag.
It was a busy day for development at Hard Rock Stadium, with every team except Aston Martin rolling out updates. Ferrari topped the list with 11 changes to their SF-26, while Red Bull introduced seven as they look to improve performance.
Red Bull have had a rough start to the season, sitting sixth in the constructors’ standings with just 16 points from three races. Both Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar voiced concerns over the RB22’s balance issues following the Japanese GP back in March.
The five-week gap between races, caused by cancellations in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, gave teams extra time to work on upgrades. During that period, Red Bull also held a filming day where they tested their own version of the Macarena wing, inspired by Ferrari’s original design.
Ted Kravitz thinks Red Bull are playing down their new Macarena rear wing in Miami
Verstappen gave the new rear wing a run at Silverstone during the break, and seeing it stay on the car in Miami has caught Kravitz’s attention. He thinks Red Bull have taken the concept even further than Ferrari did, looking to trim down drag on the RB22.
Kravitz is curious to see if Red Bull can actually race with their version right away. Ferrari tried something similar earlier in China but ran into balance and reliability issues that stopped them from sticking with it immediately.
Speaking on Sky Sports F1 (01/05, 17:18), Kravitz said: “Are you as excited as I am? I’m sure you are, by Red Bull out-Macarening the Macarena wing of the Ferrari?
“Well, we saw it in the spy pictures from their filming day that they had at Silverstone. We didn’t really believe it. But when I saw the size of the actuator that’s making that wing flip up and give the hugest drag reduction opportunity for that rear wing, opening much more than the Ferrari and even Alpine’s design.
“When I saw the actuator, I got a little bit excited. Now, when you see it on track, I’m thoroughly thrilled about it. They actually downplay it though. They say revised wing attachments for straight line mode simply allow more travel. Well you can say that again! It allows one heck of an amount of travel.”
Ferrari have also brought along a heavily updated version of their own Macarena wing this weekend in Miami after using some extra time over break to test changes during a filming day at Monza.
Their original concept first appeared back in February during pre-season testing in Bahrain but was still pretty raw at that point compared to what we’re seeing now as they try to sort out ongoing drag issues with SF-26.
The overall idea behind these flexible designs is simple: rotate those upper flaps while running flat-out down straights or dial back energy consumption without losing speed across long runs between corners or over full race distances where efficiency matters just as much as raw pace itself sometimes does.
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