McLaren’s Miami weekend did more than put two cars on the podium. It sharpened the sense that 2026’s early technical “themes” are already hardening into an arms race — and one of the most intriguing is the so-called rotating rear wing that Ferrari has been quietly refining since winter testing.
Zak Brown has now all but confirmed Woking is paying close attention. Speaking after Miami, the McLaren Racing CEO indicated the team has studied the concept closely and can see why rivals have gone there. In other words: don’t be surprised if the MCL40 ends up wearing its own version before long.
“We have,” Brown said when asked if McLaren has taken a close look at what Ferrari and Red Bull are running. “As you can imagine, all the teams look at what each other do. It’s clever and we think it could be beneficial, so not surprised to see another team using it.”
Ferrari’s device first raised eyebrows in February testing, popping up briefly before disappearing again — the sort of “look at this, now don’t” reveal that tends to tell you a team thinks it’s onto something but isn’t ready to live with it every session. It reappeared fleetingly in practice in China, then finally got its first proper, full-weekend outing in Miami.
Red Bull, too, arrived in Florida with its own take on the rotating wing as part of a major RB22 upgrade package. Considering how their season had started, the timing mattered: Max Verstappen qualifying on the front row at a track that can expose aerodynamic inefficiency was the clearest sign yet that the upgrade was a step, not a shuffle.
McLaren, meanwhile, rolled out a sizeable Miami package of its own and produced its most convincing performance of the season. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri came home second and third — a result that did two things at once. It restored momentum after a messy opening to the year, and it placed McLaren right in the middle of the sport’s next big question: if these rotating wings are “beneficial”, how long can anyone afford not to chase them?
The paddock discussion earlier in the year was that several teams had considered developing a similar active aero-style rear wing for 2026, then diverted resources elsewhere after weighing up the potential drawbacks. Among the concerns: a brief sail-like effect as the wing transitions, and the fact it’s a slower process than a more conventional DRS-style solution.
But Miami was the sort of weekend that changes internal cost-benefit calculations. Ferrari committed to the concept across the event. Red Bull turned up with its own interpretation and instantly looked healthier. And McLaren’s boss is now on record saying it’s clever — which, in this context, is less a compliment than a warning shot.
Brown also suggested the competitive picture is compressing rapidly, pointing to how lap times have moved since the season opener in Australia.
“They’ve been quick all weekend, so they’ve got some great development on the car,” he said of Red Bull. “Obviously [there’s] the Ferrari and then the Mercedes, so you have your top four. If you look at the lap times now compared to Australia, the whole field is starting to get consolidated. So I think in not too short order, we’ll be back to where we were with a very competitive, tight grid.”
That “top four” framing is telling. Mercedes has been the benchmark so far in 2026, and Ferrari has carried itself like the closest conventional threat. Red Bull and McLaren have both had weekends this season where the pace has been hard to extract — but Miami hinted at something closer to a stable platform, the kind teams build title challenges on rather than merely flirt with.
For McLaren, the urgency isn’t just about copying a clever idea because rivals have it. It’s about how quickly the competitive order might punish hesitation. This season is young, but the points picture is already stark: McLaren sits third in the constructors’ championship, 16 points behind Ferrari and 86 behind Mercedes. Norris is the highest-placed McLaren driver after four races, 49 points off championship leader Kimi Antonelli.
That gap leaves no room for philosophical debates about whether a technology is “nice to have”. If the rotating wing is real lap time — and Miami suggested it might be — then it becomes a strategic question as much as an engineering one. Bring it too late and you’re chasing a moving target. Bring it too early and you risk spending races ironing out the side effects rivals have already learned to manage.
McLaren’s season has already had enough disruption. A disappointing start included the double non-start in Shanghai, and although Miami looked like a genuine reset, the team knows better than anyone how quickly a promising weekend can turn into “what might have been” if development cadence slips.
Brown’s tone was upbeat, but there was also an edge of realism in his comments: the field is tightening, the performance ceiling is rising, and the easy gains are disappearing. In that kind of landscape, clever aero tricks don’t stay boutique for long.
If Ferrari’s rotating wing was the winter’s curiosity, and Red Bull’s Miami debut was the moment it looked like a weapon, Brown’s remarks may be remembered as the point the idea became mainstream. The question now isn’t whether McLaren is interested. It’s whether it can afford not to join in — and how fast it can do it without paying the price Ferrari and Red Bull have already swallowed in private.
