(Motorsport-Total.com) – As expected, the Miami Grand Prix is a festival of upgrades for the Formula 1 teams, who had plenty of time during the long April break to revise their cars. The technical FIA document reveals that ten of the eleven teams brought new parts to Florida.
Read more Longruns Miami: Ferrari reduces gap to Mercedes
No upgrades are listed for Aston Martin; the team has mainly worked on reliability and weight, noting that the updates from Audi, Haas, and Mercedes are modest. Andrea Kimi Antonelli had already hinted at this on media day.
Red Bull, on the other hand, has put together a large-scale package for its 2026 car, with seven upgrades listed in the FIA document.
The background to Red Bull’s own “Macarena” wing
The change that immediately attracted the most attention during the team’s filming day in Silverstone is the new rear wing. Like Ferrari, it is a rotating rear wing design for active aerodynamics, referred to in the paddock as the “Macarena wing.”
When asked by Motorsport-Total.com, Red Bull explains that the wing was neither copied from Ferrari nor inspired by the Italians. In fact, it is a concept the Milton Keynes team has been working on for much longer and for which it already submitted initial designs to the FIA last year—shortly after Ferrari.
While many teams in the pit lane were surprised when Ferrari unveiled the Macarena wing, this was not the case at Red Bull. Laurent Mekies’ team explains that they simply could not get their own version on track in time for the first three race weekends. Therefore, after a successful test in Silverstone, it is now being used for the first time in Miami.
The Red Bull wing also works somewhat differently than Ferrari’s, which can rotate up to 270 degrees. The Red Bull version apparently rotates about 160 degrees in the opposite direction compared to the Ferrari concept. The goal regarding downforce and further reduction of drag is logically the same.
“To allow more freedom of movement, the mechanism and the attachments on the elements were revised, which required a slight change to the third profile near the centerline,” explains Red Bull.
Red Bull draws attention with heavily revised sidepods
The rear wing is certainly not the only change to the RB22 this weekend. The front wing and the inlets at the front corners of the car have also been slightly modified “to suck in inlet air from the source with the highest available pressure and discharge it again with minimal blockage.”
A bit further back, the sidepods stand out. The side view differs significantly from the package Red Bull used in Japan: the sidepods now slope much more aggressively after a kink. Additionally, the revised design features a pronounced “waterslide.”
Read more Between Team Duel and Harmony: The Truth About McLaren 2025
These changes work in conjunction with a new engine cover and a new floor.
“The revised bib geometry accounts for changes to the front floor structure and flows smoothly into the sidepod, eventually meeting the engine cover. This generates more load while maintaining the stability of the downstream airflow,” says Red Bull.
RB22 overweight in Miami reduced by half
In addition to these visible changes, Red Bull has also worked on the weight of its 2026 car. The RB22 still has overweight, but insiders say significantly less than at the first three race weekends.
At the start of this season, the new car from technical director Pierre Wache weighed about twelve kilograms too much; this upgrade is supposed to roughly halve this overweight.
With another step during the European part of the season—currently expected for the Austrian or British Grand Prix—the team hopes to reach the minimum weight of 768 kilograms.
Red Bull states that the initial signals from this package have been positive, which is also important regarding correlation. In Japan, both Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar had indicated that Red Bull had not yet understood the problems, so the root cause analysis was the first step.
Team principal Laurent Mekies hopes for a step forward in Miami but has also warned that fans should “not expect miracles” after the very difficult start to the season.
“We do not expect to have solved all our problems at once, but we definitely want to give Max and Isack a car they feel more comfortable with and can push more. Ultimately, only the track in Miami will show how well we have worked and how much we still need to catch up.”
Read more Valtteri Bottas: After Japan, the WhatsApp group of the Formula 1 drivers was buzzing