McLaren will bring its own ‘upside-down’ rear wing to Formula 1’s Austrian Grand Prix, after Ferrari and Red Bull’s designs caught the eye earlier this year. 

Ferrari shocked the F1 paddock when it debuted a unique ‘upside-down’ rear wing during pre-season testing in Bahrain. The innovative design rotates the wing itself so the top flap is upside down when the straight mode is activated.

Ferrari didn’t race the unique rear wing until the Miami Grand Prix in Miami, where Red Bull also debuted its own version of the design. 

Now McLaren will join the party at this weekend’s Austrian GP, saying “we will test an experimental rear wing throughout Friday’s free practice sessions”.

The Race understands the design is likely to make its competitive debut later in the year as it’s still in its experimental phase. 

Running it in practice - presumably with back-to-back comparisons to the standard wing - will give McLaren an important trial of the concept. 

McLaren chief designer Rob Marshall had singled out Ferrari’s unique upside-down rear wing as a design idea that had caught his eye earlier in the campaign when it first appeared in testing.

Speaking at an event at the McLaren factory in Woking in April, Marshall had said: “Everyone saw that and thought, ‘oh, okay, yeah, that's all right. But [are] we sure that's legal?’ Yeah, it is! Okay.”

Marshall suggested at the time that it was standard practice in F1 for teams to evaluate good ideas introduced by rivals - even if it was not always a simple process.

“We kind of look at everything,” he explained when asked by The Race about what ideas would likely be adopted by McLaren.

“Some things are closed off to us quite quickly when you look at the regulations, others remain open.

“Others are kind of limited to you by other architectural changes you may have made, or by things to do with the engine.

“But ultimately, we do analyse everything to a certain extent. Some things go as far as being wind tunnel tested or CFD tested. Others are more kind of thought experiments we do on them to see whether we think that they would be good or bad for us.”

Marshall was clear, however, that while copying other ideas was no guarantee of success, there were some concepts that could deliver gains if adopted.

“It is a common phrase in F1 that basically copying stuff doesn't work because what works on one car doesn't work on another,” he said. “Actually, that's not necessarily true.

“Some things work on other people's cars. Remember with double diffusers. It worked on one person's car.  Everyone copied it. And you know what? It worked on those as well.“