Pierre Wache has issued a rare public apology to Max Verstappen, telling reporters in Miami that he is sorry it took Red Bull until the start of May to fix the steering problem the four-time world champion first flagged at pre-season testing in Barcelona.
The Red Bull technical director conceded that the team had spent the early rounds chasing the issue without a solution, finally arriving in Miami with a heavily revised floor, new sidepods and — most significantly — a complete steering rack rebuild and a new rotating rear-wing concept the paddock has nicknamed the "Macarena wing." Verstappen put the upgraded RB22 on the front row in qualifying and recovered to a podium-distance fifth after spinning at the start.
"First, we had to make sure that he had an issue," Wache said. "Then it was about identifying where it was coming from, and that takes a long time. And after that, it was about fixing the problem."
The diagnosis itself, he revealed, only crystallised in late April — conveniently for Red Bull, after Bahrain and Jeddah had been cancelled.
"A little bit before that, but the break gave us time to produce the parts, I would say," Wache said when asked when the team identified the root cause. "Otherwise, in Bahrain and Jeddah, we would not have had the parts."
What Wache wanted on the record, more than the technical timeline, was a personal apology to his lead driver and to the wider team.
"I’m sorry that we didn’t fix it before," Wache said. "We tried multiple stuff and it didn’t work. Some parts also took a long time to arrive, but I think the engineering team did a very good job of achieving it."
That admission carries weight inside Red Bull. Verstappen flagged a steering and balance complaint as far back as Barcelona testing and again in Japan, where he failed to make Q2. The team’s public position for two months was that the car was within its expected window. Wache’s Miami comments effectively confirm Verstappen was right.
The technical director also pulled back the curtain on the Macarena wing, the rotating rear-wing element that Red Bull tried and failed to make work in Bahrain testing, Melbourne and Suzuka before finally bringing a stable version to Miami.
"I think we started in November," Wache said. "We tried to introduce it in Bahrain and then in Melbourne. But we had some issues to make it work. We tried again in Suzuka, but we were struggling a lot. And now it works. It’s a long process to make this type of device happen."
He flagged the engineering challenge as something Red Bull had under-estimated.
"Because the time that you have to open and close it is limited. And it’s a longer distance that is not exactly what we used to," Wache said. "We also didn’t anticipate some issues because it’s a new system. Maybe it was our fault, things that we had to fix. And after fixing, it takes time on top of the normal development of the car."
Red Bull have insisted publicly that their rotating wing is not a copy of the Ferrari device that has drawn FIA scrutiny in 2026, with Wache pointing to a different rotation direction and operating principle.
A modest update package is now scheduled for the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, with weight-saving and cooling work also still to come. The bigger step — the one Verstappen and Wache will be hoping converts the RB22 from a podium contender into a winner — is being targeted at the British Grand Prix or the Austrian Grand Prix later in the European leg.
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*Originally published on [News Formula One](https://newsformula.one/article/pierre-wache-apology-verstappen-red-bull-steering-rb22-miami-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
