How Ferrari and Red Bull’s innovative upside-down rear wings compare

Red Bull caught the eye during Friday’s track action at the Miami International Autodrome when they unleashed their own upside-down rear wing design.

It comes after Ferrari made headlines at pre-season testing in Bahrain by debuting a radical, rotating rear wing element, developed to maximise performance under F1’s new-for-2026 regulations, which feature active aerodynamics.

This year, along designated straight sections, flaps on cars’ front and rear wings move to an ‘open’ position and engage a low-drag mode, flattening the wings to reduce drag and increase top speed, while in the corners, they run in their default ‘closed’ position to maintain downforce and provide more grip.

Ferrari’s ‘flip-flop’ creation

After the initial Barcelona Shakedown, Ferrari got the entire F1 paddock talking on Day 2 of pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit by revealing what would be dubbed by driver Lewis Hamilton as the ‘flip-flop’ wing.

Instead of simply switching from an angled to a flat position, the special rear wing component flips completely upside down, creating a bigger gap for air to travel through and reducing drag when travelling down the straights.

Ferrari opted against using it at the season-opening round in Australia, but it returned for Friday practice at the Chinese Grand Prix Sprint weekend, where it was subsequently removed to allow engineers to further tweak the concept.

“It’s great to see that the team are fighting… the team are pushing, chasing and really working overtime back at the factory to be able to bring upgrades, because that’s the name of the game,” said Hamilton in Shanghai.

“Last year I didn’t get to see the team’s full potential in that mode, because we were focused on this year’s car. I don’t know if it has an official name… Someone said ‘Macarena’, I have no idea why! It’s the ‘flip-flop’ wing!”

F1.com technical expert Mark Hughes explained exactly how the wing works after it broke cover.

“In normal downforce mode, the wing’s upper surface is of a smaller surface area than the underside,” he wrote. “It is this which creates the air pressure difference between above and below – and that, in turn, creates downforce.

“With the wing flipped, the smaller surface area becomes the lower one – thereby creating more space in the gap than in a conventional flattened (but not upside-down) flap.”

Red Bull’s own upside-down rear wing

While Ferrari’s wing returned once more in Miami, and remained on the car during Sprint Qualifying, this time it was not alone, for rivals Red Bull had also introduced a striking design.

From the television footage and photographs captured throughout FP1, Red Bull’s version appears to produce an even bigger slot gap – the upper element rising above the rear wing endplates, while Ferrari’s sits underneath them.

“To allow more travel, the mechanism and attachments to the elements have been revised, necessitating a subtle altering of the third profile near centreline,” reads the explanation from Red Bull – within the FIA’s pre-weekend car update submissions document – regarding the changes to their rear wing.

“Once it’s fully open, the slot gap – the gap between the lower edge and the wing when it’s fully open – is utterly enormous," explains F1 technical expert Sam Collins in the latest edition of Tech Talk. "It’s very different and more extreme perhaps than the Ferrari design as Red Bull are probably trying to generate a little bit of lift from those inverted elements."

It comes as part of an extensive upgrade package, also covering the front wing, sidepods, engine cover and floor, aimed at bringing Red Bull closer to rivals Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren after a tricky start to their 2026 season.

“It was a massive amount of work done to deep dive into what was limiting us, and to bring updates,” team boss Laurent Mekies told Sky Sports F1.

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

He then insisted that Red Bull’s rear wing design was original, rather than a copy of Ferrari’s.

“As much as you will not believe me, I have to say, in fairness to the guys [in the design team]… the guys came up with that concept far, far before we hit the track and we saw what everybody else has been doing,” he added.

“But as we said, we had bigger issues to solve before to be able to bring that rear wing to the track, and it’s a good indication of how hard everyone is pushing.”