The race against time to have the rear wing defined as “Macarena” by Frédéric Vasseur was ineffective, because this weekend we should not see it again. But it was only apparently so.
Ferrari tested the wing that rotates its profile by 270 degrees in the only free practice session of the Chinese Grand Prix, in Shanghai, probably with the aim of seeing if it was already enough to give the SF-26s of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc the expected advantages.
After the session, however, the Maranello team removed them from both cars, preferring to rely on the more classic solution with the actuator in the center of the car and the canonical opening of the upper profile.
“We used Free Practice 1 to do a sort of reliability test with the rear wing and we decided not to use it today. We needed it to do more kilometers with the wing in view of next week and then make a final decision”, declared the Ferrari team principal to Sky Sport F1.
Ferrari wing on the SF-26
Photo at: AG Photo
Bringing such an influential component to China to test it only in a free practice session, moreover in a Sprint weekend, could lead to the possibility of its use also in qualifying and the race. But it must be taken into consideration that, in all likelihood, F1 will not race in Bahrain, much less in Jeddah.
This means that Ferrari, in the next month and a half, will have no other sessions other than the three of the Japanese Grand Prix to do track tests and decide if and when to debut the “Macarena” for an entire race weekend.
At the end of the Sprint Qualifying in Shanghai, Lewis Hamilton underlined Ferrari’s efforts in bringing the winger already to China, while it was the plan to have it ready after about 5 grands prix.
“I’m not sure why we backed out. I think it’s because we rushed it to get him here when he wasn’t supposed to be ready until the fourth or fifth race, or something like that. So they did a great job getting him here in time.”
The team brought two examples of the rotating profile wing to China, judging its use premature. However, Hamilton underlined how the solution seems to be able to give that little bit more from a performance point of view that Ferrari expects from the new solution seen for the first time in the Bahrain tests in February.
“We only had two examples of the wing. And maybe for me it was a little premature (to use it here). So we took it out. The car was still fantastic. And we’ll work on trying to bring it back when it’s ready.”
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