The McLaren Formula 1 team will finally trial its upside-down rear wing at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, where it unleashes a significant upgrade package to improve its competitiveness.
McLaren has long earmarked this weekend’s Budapest round as its next major opportunity to add performance to the MCL40, a car which it admitted has been two to three months behind in terms of aero development compared to rivals.
Following a first major overhaul across the Miami and Montreal weekends, and various smaller ticket items since then, Hungary will see McLaren bringing its latest developments to the 2026 car, built around a redesigned floor as well as “further other aerodynamic parts”.
“We have an upgrade package arriving this weekend, and in such a competitive season every development is important so it will be great to gather further understanding on how those parts perform throughout free practice,” McLaren’s senior director of racing Randy Singh was quoted.
“Our aim is to maximise everything we have available, carry positive momentum into the shutdown and put ourselves in the strongest possible position for the second half of the championship.”
McLaren has been trying to overcome a development gap after its prolonged 2025 driver title battle and a change in aero approach for 2026
Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images
Speaking about McLaren’s plan to add both aerodynamic load to the car and make it more efficient, team boss Andrea Stella recently said: “The development on the ground has been quite strong for a few months now. This has led to the upgrades we had in Miami and now there will be another round of upgrades which will come in Hungary and then after the shutdown.”
McLaren started the season in reasonable shape but was unable to keep up with dominant Mercedes, while Ferrari rolled out an impressive series of upgrades that put both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in a position to win a grand prix. Red Bull has also added significant performance to its RB22.
That’s why McLaren’s next upgrade package couldn’t come soon enough. “It’s difficult to lean on the range of performance that Ferrari and Mercedes are operating in at the moment, but hopefully as of Hungary we will start to see a bit of an acceleration in our competitiveness,” Stella said.
“We have now a clear direction in terms of development, but in some areas of the car it took a couple of months to get it to be realised. So, we should see in Hungary the first results of this approach and then hopefully more and more upgrades for the rest of the season.”
Ferrari SF-26
Photo by: Roberto Chinchero
McLaren will also roll out its own version of the upside-down ‘Macarena’ rear wing after deciding not to test in Austria. After seeing Ferrari debut the concept in winter testing, with a rear wing mainplane rotating 180 degrees when Straight Mode is enabled, McLaren embarked on its own project to bring the concept to life.
The British outfit initially planned to trial the concept in Austria FP1, but encountered problems in the garage which prompted it to take the wing back to the factory for further fine tuning. After further developments, the experimental rear wing is now set to debut in FP1 before being taken off again for the remainder of the weekend.
McLaren confirmed the rear wing is “not scheduled to be introduced fully at this or the following race in the Netherlands”. But if the Hungary test is successful, the upside-down rear wing could debut further down the line at drag sensitive circuits like Monza or Baku.
Red Bull’s fraught introduction of its own ‘Macarena’ wing has demonstrated the possible reliability and safety concerns related to the wing’s closure and how the airflow reattaches to it, with Max Verstappen suffering two scary spins in Spielberg and Silverstone. The Milton Keynes team took the design off for Belgium, but is intending to trial an improved version as early as Hungary.
