McLaren driver Lando Norris with his active aero activated in Austria.McLaren technical director for engineering, Neil Houldey, revealed the team rolled back on plans to test its version of the ‘Macarena’ rear wing in practice, as there is still work to be done. The team confirmed that it would be looking to trial its own version of the rotating rear wing flap at the Red Bull Ring, as evidenced at Ferrari and nicknamed after how team principal, Fred Vasseur, described it. McLaren ‘Macarena’ wing decision explained after planned Lando Norris test Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust Lando Norris had been set to run with McLaren’s test version of the wing in free practice on Friday, but after a delay to getting out on track in FP1, he appeared with the team’s previous design. Norris had confirmed ahead of the weekend that it was “just a test wing” to “make sure it actually works”, but the team opted to keep it in the garage on this occasion. Asked for why that was the case, Houldey, one of three technical directors at McLaren, revealed the wing did not respond as planned, leaving work to do to prepare it for a future race. “We’ve done a lot of work in the last few weeks at the factory, just trying to get something to this event, because we knew this event would be a good opportunity to test the wing,” Houldey said. “A lot of work in the lab that happened over the last few days, and we knew that when it came here, we still had a little bit of sign-off work to do. “When we fitted it up and did that final sign-off, we weren’t comfortable enough to take it into the first session, so we’re sending it back, and we’ve got a little bit more work to do before we’ll take it back out to the track again. “So, really just learning that we were able to take in the garage rather than on the track, that means that it needs a little bit more development before we’re prepared and able to run it on the circuit in the future.” Asked for specifics on why the decision was taken, Houldey added: “Just that it didn’t respond in the way that we needed it to. “I don’t want to go into technical detail on it, but we realised once we actuated it that actually it wasn’t doing what we needed it to, and therefore it was best not to spend time trying to make it work in that first session. How the F1 2026 season is shaping up so far “It was important for us to try and get running on the car that we wanted to run for the rest of the weekend, because the intention was only to run it for a very, very short period of time anyway. “Actually, we were best to focus on the car and this weekend rather than development work, and we’ll bring that wing back when we’ve learned a little bit more and comfortable with the design.” Norris and Oscar Piastri both ranked in the top three in FP2 on Friday, with Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli having topped both practice sessions in Austria. Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists. You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!
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