Ferrari appears to have caught many by surprise with the most visually standout technical innovation of Formula 1\u2019s 2026 pre-season so far – its \u2018upside down\u2019 rear wing.<\/p>\n
The roughly 225 degrees clockwise rotation of the rear wing elements while in straight mode stole the headlines on Thursday morning in Bahrain.<\/p>\n
Even though it only ran briefly with Ferrari soon returning to the track on its previous-spec rear wing, it didn\u2019t escape the attention of the FIA or rival teams.<\/p>\n
The Race asked the FIA\u2019s technical director, Nikolas Tombazis, whether it was legal.<\/p>\n
He replied: \u201cWe have, generally speaking, encouraged solutions that reduce drag.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s why the DRS regulations of last year, which were limiting the amount of opening, those have not been maintained this year in order to give more freedom.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the Ferrari solution, we believe, is OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
So it has FIA approval, but what do rivals make of it?<\/p>\n
Ollie Bearman got quite the shock when he saw it open in that unusual way when he was following Lewis Hamilton out on track.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was behind Lewis, and I saw it and I was like, f***, what happened? I thought it was broken, but honestly, it’s super innovative,\u201d Bearman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks pretty slick as well, so if it works on track, then they’ve done something right, that’s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bearman believes other teams have considered it too but have come up against a key obstacle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks cool but it’s heavy as well,\u201d Haas’s Bearman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone, I think, has considered it, including ourselves. But, there’s always a compromise to be made on those things.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s particularly pertinent given many teams are fighting to get close to the reduced minimum weight limit for 2026.<\/p>\n
Teams like Williams, for whom the upside down Ferrari rear wing has come as a surprise.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of packaging, inside the endplates, there were pros and cons to it overall,\u201d Vowels said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s worth saying, and this is not just Williams but teams up and down the grid, whenever you see something interesting, either it goes into the bracket of ‘we’ve already thought about it, here’s the results and why we didn’t do it’ or it goes into the bracket of ‘we did not think of that’.<\/p>\n
“And [then] near enough overnight, within 24 hours, I would expect results to, effectively indicate to us whether it’s good or bad, so we can modify our direction of travel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rear wing from Ferrari, it’s an interesting direction of travel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if Williams had thought of it, Vowles replied: \u201cThat one hasn’t come across our radar. Not sure it’s good yet either, but let’s find out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, even Ferrari isn\u2019t sure whether it will use the innovative design going forward.<\/p>\n
More on this story<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everybody is doing innovation, sometimes it\u2019s visible, sometimes it\u2019s not, but I\u2019m sure that our competitors and everybody on the grid is doing exactly the same,\u201d Vasseur said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s true the last two things we brought on track were visible from outside, but it\u2019s not a big difference with the others.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if it will be for Melbourne or the next one.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ferrari appears to have caught many by surprise with the most visually standout technical innovation of Formula 1\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-490618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}