Red Bull denies copying Ferrari’s rotating F1 rear wing innovation after Miami GP debut

Red Bull has denied suggestions it has copied Formula 1 rival Ferrari’s unique rotating rear wing design.

The Milton Keynes based outfit caused a stir as the 2026 F1 season resumed at the Miami Grand Prix by unleashing a raft of upgrades to its RB22 challenger, including its own version of a rear wing concept that first appeared on the Ferrari.

Ferrari seemed to have pioneered a novel solution to reduce drag during pre-season testing in Bahrain when the SF-26 was spotted using a rear wing design that flipped upside down at the end of straights.

The innovation made its first appearance during a race weekend in China, but Ferrari removed the device from its car after testing it during free practice in Shanghai.

Red Bull debuted its own version of the so-called ‘Macarena’ wing during practice in Miami and was quick to insist it has not been copied from Ferrari.

“As much as you will not believe me anyway, I have to say, in fairness to the guys, they came up with that concept far, far before we hit the track and we saw what everybody else had been doing,” Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies told Sky Sports F1.

“But we had bigger issues to solve before to be able to bring that to the track. It’s a good indication of how hard everybody is pushing.”

It was an encouraging start to the weekend for Red Bull, with Max Verstappen ending up second-fastest and appearing much happier in his heavily-revised car.

“Honestly, we only look at ourselves during that session,” Mekies said of Red Bull’s performance in FP1. “It was important after the big break and all the big changes on the car, to try and assess us against us.

“In China and Japan, regardless of where the competition was, there were a lot of things that were stopping Max and Isack to push, and that’s what we have tried to fix.

“We will very much concentrate on ourselves. The gap to the competition, we will look at a little bit later, but certainly on Max’s side, he has something that he can push a bit more with.”

Asked what the immediate feedback was on the changes Red Bull has brought, Mekies replied: “It’s a bit early to deep-dive into the data but yes definitely we learnt a lot.

“It was a massive amount of work done in Milton Keynes to deep-dive into what was limiting us and to bring updates, it’s basically two parallel floors.

“We had upgrades planned anyway, like everybody else, but on top of that everyone in Milton Keynes had to try and get around and get to the bottom of what was limiting us.

“There is encouraging signs. It is only FP1 and we have all the data to go through, but it seems to be a step in the correct direction for now.”