Red Bull has confirmed it has identified and resolved the mechanical issues with its Macarena rear wing design, paving the way for the updated component to return at this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.
Team principal Laurent Mekies revealed after Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps that the team had traced two separate mechanical failures that caused back-to-back high-speed crashes for Max Verstappen at the Austrian and British Grands Prix. The Dutchman had branded the rear wing on Red Bull's RB22 "super dangerous" after a second consecutive failure at Silverstone.
"It was mechanical, and it was two different things," Mekies explained. "So two different mechanical issues. We will have a fix for Budapest."
Red Bull reverted to an older-spec, more conventional rear wing for last weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, where Verstappen returned to the podium with a third-place finish. The team's technical director, Pierre Wache, said the problems had been traced to a mechanical fault in the wing's design and that the fix had been validated.
"It's a mechanical problem that we spotted after the accident in Silverstone," Wache said. "We fix it. We are trying to prove that we are bulletproof before we put on the car, and it should be ready for Budapest."
Wache confirmed that the FIA was satisfied with Red Bull's proposed solution. "We've proved it to them, what we've done," he added. "I think it's on our side that we make it cautious now. We don't want to take any risk, and we want to be 100% sure."
Verstappen, who drove the older-spec wing to a podium finish at Spa, was asked about the replacement. "You mean the old rear wing? It performed well. I kept it on the road, which I think is the first thing," he quipped.
"We were just a little bit more competitive, and the balance was a little bit better. But we struggled more on the hard tyre, as simple as that."
The Hungarian Grand Prix will provide the first real test of the repaired Macarena wing. Verstappen remained cautious about his prospects at the Hungaroring, a tight and twisty circuit that demands strong cornering performance. "Of course it's nice to be less starved in Hungary, but I don't know whether that's good or bad because, at the end of the day, there are a lot of corners and you need good cornering performance from the car," he said.
With the FIA's approval secured and the fix validated in testing, Red Bull will now look to put the wing controversy behind them and focus on closing the gap to championship rivals.
Sources
- https://www.crash.net/f1/news/1101537/1/red-bull-confirms-findings-super-dangerous-wing-max-verstappen-judges-old-design
