Red Bull confirms findings on ‘super dangerous’ wing as Max Verstappen judges old design

Red Bull Formula 1 team principal Laurent Mekies has confirmed his side has a “fix” for its Macarena rear wing design ahead of its anticipated return at the Hungarian Grand Prix. 

The Milton Keynes-based squad ditched its own solution to the rotating rear wing concept originally pioneered by Ferrari following back-to-back high-speed crashes for Max Verstappen at the Austrian and British Grands Prix. 

Following a second consecutive failure at Silverstone, Verstappen branded the rear wing on Red Bull’s RB22 car “super dangerous”. 

Red Bull subsequently reverted to an older-spec, more conventional rear wing design for last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix. 

"It was mechanical, and it was two different things," Mekies explained of Red Bull’s problematic rear wing after Sunday’s race at Spa-Francorchamps. 

"So two different mechanical issues. We will have a fix for Budapest.”

During the weekend in Belgium, Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache said the issues had been traced back to a mechanical problem with the design of the wing. 

“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 insisted F1’s governing body the FIA was satisfied with the standard of Red Bull’s design. 

“We’ve proved it to them, what we've done,” the Frenchman 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 was asked about Red Bull’s replacement rear wing after returning to the F1 podium with a third-place finish at Spa. 

“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.”

On Red Bull’s chances in Budapest this weekend, Verstappen was cautious.

“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, which makes it impossible to know how good we are going to be,” he said.