– Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur says that the copying of innovative designs by rival teams is a “nice reward” for Maranello, although he emphasizes: “I’m not here to get compliments. I’m here because I want to win. The best compliment for me is to stand on the podium.”
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“But yes, it’s true: For the guys in the team, it’s a nice reward – to see Red Bull follow with the wing,” said Vasseur, who at the same time has to admit that Red Bull probably started researching earlier. “But also how the others start to copy or adopt the device on the exhaust.”
Ferrari started the new 2026 regulation cycle with a striking car, the SF-26, and presented a series of fascinating innovations. At the winter tests in Bahrain, the team added a winglet on the structure behind the exhaust – called FTM internally – which gives the rear of the car additional downforce at the cost of slightly more drag.
The following day, Ferrari introduced a rotating wing, nicknamed the Macarena wing, which rotates 180 degrees between cornering and straight modes.
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In particular, the exhaust wing was widely copied by competitors, although Ferrari’s solution was difficult to fully reconstruct because the Scuderia had designed entire elements of the rear of the car around it.
The FIA has meanwhile banned the exhaust device for 2027 by closing the corresponding loophole in the technical regulations to prevent the designs from getting out of hand.
The rotating wing has meanwhile also been adopted by Red Bull and tested by McLaren. McLaren started working on this project in response to what Ferrari showed during the test drives, while Red Bull independently pursued its own design concept.
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“We were disappointed that we didn’t pick it up as quickly as Ferrari and then Red Bull,” said McLaren’s Technical Director Neil Houldey. “As soon as we saw it, we realized there was an opportunity there.”
Inertia in the commitment system
The Ferrari SF-26 is considered by many to be the best chassis in the Formula 1 field. After a series of upgrades, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were each able to win a Grand Prix – in Silverstone and Barcelona respectively – thereby consolidating Ferrari’s second place in the championship.
The SF-26 was the first car developed under the direction of Technical Director Loic Serra. Serra was originally hired in 2023 but only joined the team from Mercedes at the end of 2024 after a long ban period.
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According to Vasseur, this lengthy process is a good example of why it takes so much time to restructure a Formula 1 team. “The frustration you sometimes feel in F1 is that the processes on the technical side are extremely long because there is an enormous amount of inertia,” he explains to Autosport, a sister platform of Motorsport-Total.com in the Motorsport Network..
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“For example, we started talking in mid-’23, and he joined the team at the end of 2024. Then he focuses on the car for ’26 and is still recruiting people to help him. That means this process stretches over years – while on the other hand we want to see results next week already.”
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