Particle.news

Red Bull Probes Revolving Rear Wing After Two Verstappen Incidents

Safety talks with the FIA could force Red Bull to stop using the high-rotation 'Macarena' wing at Spa or require mandated fixes.

Overview

  • Max Verstappen suffered a rear-wing-related spin at Silverstone last weekend after a separate rear-wing problem in Austria the previous weekend, and he called the repeats "super dangerous."
  • Red Bull has opened a full internal investigation and says it will "leave no stone unturned," with team chiefs saying they may revert to a conventional rear wing for the Belgian Grand Prix if the fault cannot be eliminated.
  • The FIA has begun safety discussions with Red Bull and Ferrari to assess whether the revolving upper-flap designs and their fail-safes meet rules that require a failed system to return to corner mode quickly.
  • The concepts differ by design: Red Bull's upper flap rotates about 160 degrees in the opposite direction to Ferrari's much larger rotation, and early signs suggest the two failures were caused by different faults; other teams such as McLaren have deferred running similar devices.
  • The dispute forces a clear trade-off between the wings' low-drag performance benefit at energy‑sensitive tracks like Spa and immediate driver safety, raising the prospect of short-term operational rollbacks or longer-term technical restrictions.