At the beginning of a season in which Red Bull have fallen short of McLaren’s pace, Jos Verstappen has retweeted a video of the McLaren v Red Bull rear wings and their flexibility.

McLaren have taken the early lead in both championships three rounds into the F1 2025 season, Lando Norris leading the Drivers’ by a single point ahead of Max Verstappen while McLaren are 36 points ahead of Mercedes in the teams’ standings.

Is McLaren’s rear wing flexing under speed?

It has been an impressive start to the campaign for the Woking team, who have won two of the three Grands Prix, including a 1-2 in China, and were second and third in their only Sunday defeat.

That race, Japan, was won by Verstappen, who followed up his pole position at Suzuka with the Grand Prix win as he crossed the line 1.4s ahead of championship leader Norris.

It has, however, led to questions about McLaren’s rear wing.

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After pre-season testing in Bahrain, a report from The Race stated that rear wing flexing may still be an issue on the grid, either through the entire rear wing flexing at speed rather than just the slot gap, or continuing with slot gap flexibility.

Red Bull technical director Pierre Waché told the publication that it is “quite visible”, adding: “It is still going on, I think McLaren are doing the mini-DRS stuff still.”

The FIA issued a revised Technical Directive for the rear wings ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and then went even further with a stricter clampdown on rear wings in China.

The new restrictions meant the 10 F1 teams would have to prepare rear wings that flex at a limit of 0.5 mm, down from 2mm under a vertical load-bearing test of 75kg on the mainplane, with a China-only tolerance of 0.25mm.

But after Japan, round three, when Norris was chased by Oscar Piastri with footage of that battle from the Briton’s rear wing camera, the simple positioning of a mouse finger shows the gap on the McLaren wing increases and decreases.

Jos Verstappen, Max’s father, retweeted it.

The X user added after that: “Jos retweeting this means that in the background there is something MASSIVE happening.

“No way he’s retweeting this without knowing what’s going on.

“Will be interesting few weeks until Barcelona/the new TD.”

The Barcelona TD relates to front wings with the FIA hoping to have resolved the rear wing controversy by then before clamping down on front wings.

Verstappen’s retweet came as Red Bull team principal Christian Horner revealed that he is keeping an eye on the the upcoming FIA technical directive to be introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix.

The FIA will be bringing in more stringent static load tests on front wings from Barcelona onwards at the start of June, following a fact-finding mission last season to establish whether different tests needed introducing.

“I think there’s an unknown as to how it will affect the different cars,” Horner explained to reporters in Japan when discussing the upcoming rule change.

“You can see that the operating window of these cars is very, very narrow, and that front wing change is quite a significant one – so it will be interesting to see how and who it affects. There’s no guarantees.

“We know areas of the car that we need to improve, and the whole team is very focused on them, but I think this championship is all going to be about maximising your opportunities.

“In the first three races, which was a very close second in Melbourne. China Sprint, we were competitive in the first half, faded in the second half of that race. China Grand Prix, we had a competitive stint on the hard tyre there to P4, so there are a lot of positives to take, and we know if we can unlock some of the potential on this car, it puts us right in the fight.”

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