Ferrari quietly runs movable front wing in Budapest tyre test as F1 2026 takes shape
Charles Leclerc, a Ferrari mule car and a very un-F1 2025 front wing: that was the headline item at Pirelli’s latest development run at the Hungaroring, where Maranello rolled out a downforce-trimming device to help the supplier map out next year’s aerodynamic step.
Under a technical directive introduced in June, teams are allowed to run prototype movable front-wing elements during official tyre tests. Ferrari took up the option on day two in Budapest, going a step beyond the “DRS-open-all-day” approach others have used to mimic 2026’s lower rear-wing load. Aston Martin and Sauber didn’t use the device at Silverstone in July, and McLaren, Racing Bulls and Alpine skipped it on day one in Hungary. Ferrari pressed the button on day two.
The aim is simple enough: simulate the front-end load drop expected from 2026’s new aero rulebook, which will feature movable front and rear wings to trim drag and sharpen straight-line speed before reclaiming load for corners. Pirelli, whose job is to homologate an all-new family of tyres for that environment, gets cleaner data on braking points, cornering speeds and how the new rubber survives when the front footprint is working harder, less, or differently.
“It was good to confirm, especially that the tests we ran with cars without this device are still relevant,” Pirelli’s Mario Isola said over the Dutch Grand Prix weekend. “We found differences, but we’ve been able to compare and understand the impact. That means we can make all the aero tests relevant.
“Is the device working as well as the new cars? No, because most of the downforce of these current cars is coming from the floor, not the wings. So probably the device will be more powerful next year, with a load reduction and drag reduction that is more than what we measure with a mule car, but still good to check the effect.”
Ferrari’s mule was a 2025-spec chassis adapted for the narrower tyres that are coming with the 2026 reset. The Scuderia’s movable front wing gave Pirelli a clearer front-rear balance picture than pure setup tricks. It’s incremental progress, but in a development window this tight, increments count.
This week also lands a hard deadline for Pirelli: the 2026 compounds are now frozen. As of September 1, the Italian firm has locked in a six-step C1-to-C6 range for next year. The sizes remain 18-inch, but the tyres are changing shape with a lower diameter and different width, forcing a complete profile rethink.
“The profile defines the footprint and how the footprint operates,” Isola explained. “That’s really important for us, because the footprint defines wear and degradation. If you have a small area where you are pushing a lot, that area is more prone to blistering. The change is quite big.”
The test calendar is tight, too. After Budapest, there’s just Monza, Mugello and Mexico to gather real-world data before winter, and all of it against a moving target. Teams will add downforce as they always do, so Pirelli is designing for the end of 2026 as much as the start.
“In general, the load seems to be lower during this year, but we have to consider the end of next season, not the beginning,” Isola said. “We freeze the tyre for one year. We cannot change the construction mid-season unless the simulations were clearly underestimated.”
Pirelli’s approach is double-barrelled: physical prototypes on mule cars, and a virtual tyre model sent to teams for simulator correlation. Early feedback pushed for a sturdier rear end.
“At the beginning of the development, the teams required higher stiffness from the rear tyres. The front was good, the rear a little bit weak,” Isola said. “So we made a stronger rear, and we always work with the teams to find the best compromise with the information we have.”
There’s also a push to widen the lap-time delta between compounds so strategy doesn’t stagnate when the new aero rules reshuffle the deck. But even with a locked compound list, Pirelli is realistic about what preseason will show.
“We want to have flexibility to move a bit more on the soft side or the harder side, depending on the real performance of the cars,” Isola added. “We will discover that only next year at the preseason test—and probably not even the real performance at the preseason test, because we know that the teams are hiding.”
For Ferrari, the front-wing trial was a useful bellwether: how does the car behave when you rob the front end while running a shrunken footprint? For Pirelli, it was a small but important calibration as it celebrates its 500th F1 entry, with the milestone marked at home in Monza.
The takeaway from Budapest is not that Ferrari has stolen a march on 2026 aero tricks—these were Pirelli’s miles, not Ferrari’s—but that the tyre maker is finally getting to measure the new world with tools that mimic it. The next three tests will matter. After that, it’s over to the teams to reveal what they’ve really got when the wings start moving and the stopwatch comes out.
