Hungary, fella? - Part 1

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting such a big list of new parts to arrive at the Hungaroring, as outside of Aston Martin, for whom a B-spec AMR26 beckons, there’s new parts on everything beside the Alpine.

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So, let’s start with the ones we did expect, with Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren all sporting ‘Macarena’ wings (yes, I still hate that name) at various points in their development phase.

There’s several facets to Ferrari’s new version of their solution, with some inspiration taken from their rivals along the way you’d expect.

The first of those is the new triangular-shaped ‘rotation brackets’ or, as the teams apparently call them ‘hanger flaps’, which are remiscent or solution seen on the Red Bull RB19.

Then, in the central section of the wing, we have two new solutions, firstly, on the trailing edge of the upper flap, the pre-existing hanger flap in now flanked by two shorter ones.

Then we have a higher downforce addition, similar to the one introduced by McLaren at the Monaco Grand Prix, with a three element cascade mounted on the mainplane.

This is possible for Ferrari, as their rear wing active aero has the actuators housed within the endplates, rather than on the centreline as it was with DRS and on their rivals’ designs.

And, whilst they’ll race the additional cascade element on both cars in Hungary, Ferrari did their due diligence and checked the wing performed as it should without that element for future races, as seen here, with flo-viz on the rear wing of Lewis Hamilton’s SF-26.

As an aside, it’s also worth noting that Ferrari have gone back to the tri-skyscraper element deflector array, having used the single element variant at Silverstone and Spa. The latter is considered a lower downforce option and gives Ferrari some versatility in an area of the car where no-one else has that sort of option available to them.

This issues faced by Max Verstappen in Austria and at Silverstone led to a thorough investigation into the operation of their ‘Macarena’ wing solution and has led to some mechanical alterations.

The main actuator mechanism on the centreline (blue arrow) has been changed, along with the pod bodywork that wraps around it. Meanwhile, the pivot and adjuster in the outer corner of the wing has also been changed in Hungary (red arrow).

It’s also worth noting that Red Bull have increased the length of the rear wing mounting pillars too.

Andrea Galante@AndreaGalante__

Macarena wing in action on the #McLaren. 📷@F1ingenerale_ #F1 #HungarianGP #F1tech #F1news #F12026

12:03 PM · Jul 24, 2026 · 9.47K Views

1 Reply · 15 Reposts · 284 Likes

The ‘McLarena’ wing isn’t being raced this weekend but the team did put it through its paces on Friday, in order to assess its worthiness going forward.

The design has more in common with the Red Bull solution in terms of the direction of rotation and given it retains the central actuator but, rather than being elevated above the endplates, as we’ve seen on the RB19, the McLaren solution still fits within the rear wing’s silloutte, much like Ferrari’s does.

The Race@wearetherace

🔎 A closer look at McLaren's macarena wing used in FP1:

3:51 PM · Jul 24, 2026 · 14.6K Views

1 Reply · 12 Reposts · 430 Likes

Sticking with the theme of rear wing, let’s move over to the Mercedes, as they’ve also been busy making changes to the W17 in Hungary.

And, once again, they come in the form of changes to the hanger flaps..

The outer hanger flaps, which were simple elements have been exchanged for the green triangular quality street alternatives we’ve seen cropping up elsewhere (red arrow), whilst a taller skyscraper flap in the centre, has been added to their arsenal too (blue arrow).

nicolas carpentiers@carpentiers_f1

#RacingBullsF1 has revised its rear wing for the #HungarianGP. A rectangular winglet has been added beneath the existing central winglet (red/yellow arrows). New triangular winglets (blue arrows) further increase downforce. #F1 #TechF1 https://t.co/WCSH1WdapJ

nicolas carpentiers @carpentiers_f1

As spotted by @thomasmaheronf1, the #RacingBullsF1 roll hoop appears to feature a small additional winglet on top, visible here on Lindblad's car. #F1 #HungarianGP

7:04 PM · Jul 23, 2026 · 11.8K Views

8 Reposts · 126 Likes

In terms of the rear wing arrangement, Nicolas has given us a great visual timeline of how those changes have manifested, starting in Monaco where the teams couldn’t use active aero, which resulted in a winglet sprouting out the back of the actuator pod in the central section of the wing (yellow arrow).

In Barcelona it became apparent that the team could still use this even with the wing in motion, such was the design of the arrangement.

However, in Hungary version 2.0 has arrived, which see’s the crane winglet raised higher and angled so it reaches forward of the horizontal plane (yellow arrow).

This is then mounted on a wider hanger flap, much like we’ve seen many of their rivals use (red arrow), whilst they’ve also been digging around in the Quality Street tub and found a green triangle of their own (blue arrow).

What I do find more intriguing though is the bump ramps that have been mounted on the upper flap ahead of the hanger flap. As these are starting to emerge on several wings now and clearly hold an aerodynamic advantage in terms of setting up the flow towards the ancillary components, such as the hanger flaps.

This will be critical in making all of these surfaces work from a multi-modal point of view too, when we consider how the wing performs not only in its static state but also when active aero is deployed and perhaps more importantly still, in the transient conditions between those two states.

I also wanted to take a moment to let you know that whilst I’m going to continue to bring you as much technical coverage as I can over the rest of the season, I’m now working for Raceteq.

I’ll be sure to let you know on here when I have stuff dropping too, the first of which can be found here: https://www.raceteq.com/articles/2026/07/decoding-gear-ratios-and-what-mclarens-f1-gear-choice-reveals