McLaren F1 chief issues 'Macarena' wing update as disappointment revealed

Lando Norris, McLaren, Japan, 2026 — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

McLaren chief issues 'Macarena' wing update as disappointment revealed

Better late than never?

Chris Deeley

Thursday 13 August 2026 10:56

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The Macarena: A dance that almost everyone knows, and can basically pick up after seeing it once.

The Macarena rear wing: A design that almost everyone's seen, which appears to be an absolute nightmare to replicate.

Ferrari introduced the innovative aero concept at the start of the 2026 season and sent a number of their rivals scrambling to figure out their own version of it, with limited success thus far.

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Red Bull's attempt has been an unmitigated disaster, while McLaren have only tentatively run their in select practice sessions in the run up to the summer break.

McLaren tech director Neil Houldey has admitted that the team were disappointed to be lagging so far behind the Scuderia on the technology involved in making their rear wings do a little flip, but said that they 'think' they've figured out a working solution.

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McLaren chief: We realised there was an opportunity in Macarena wing

Houdley told Motorsport.com over the break: "We were disappointed not to pick that up as quickly as Ferrari did and then Red Bull. As soon as we saw it, we realised there was an opportunity there and we looked into it for a while.

"But there are all these big performance upgrades on offer for the wing, so it wasn't our prime project, and we were working on it in the background. We did lab testing, brought it to FP1 in Austria, and we found an issue with it in the garage, so we took it back to the factory.

"We think we've now found a concept that works and we've created a reliable solution. We understand some of the aerodynamic risks with doing it."

Those risks include the frightening crashes Max Verstappen suffered recently, which his rear wing appeared to be at least in part responsible for, and the McLaren man added: "It's the fact that the activation time might be slightly longer, the fact that it takes a little bit more time for the aerodynamic load to come back when you reactivate."

He continued: "We looked at it whilst developing rear wings for performance, generally. We're now trying to find a way of introducing that concept into our new rear wing generation, which should be happening in the next few races."

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