Five Active Aero Zones in Singapore — Where None Were Ever Supposed to Be Needed

Marina Bay is a claustrophobic, 19-corner circuit famous for kerbs, walls inches from the wheels, and barely a genuine straight anywhere on the lap. The last place you’d expect to see drag-reducing active aerodynamics, in other words. The FIA decided otherwise: for the 2026 Singapore Grand Prix — the first season the rules allow movable wings at all — the track gets a full five Straight Mode zones, tying Melbourne for the most of any round this year.

What Straight Mode is, and where it’s allowed

The 2026 regulations let drivers move the front and rear wings into a lower-drag position, but only inside zones the FIA designates in advance for each circuit. Singapore gets five: Turn 5 to Turn 7 (the longest), Turn 9 to 10, Turn 13 to 14, Turn 15 to 19, and down the start/finish straight from Turn 19 to the first corner.

Why so many on a track with no straights

The FIA hasn’t publicly explained its reasoning for Singapore’s specific zone count, but the pattern across the season is telling: Monaco, the tightest and most twisting circuit on the calendar, gets none. Singapore and Melbourne, with more medium-length runs between corners, get five apiece. In other words, it isn’t straight-line length that drives the zone count — it’s how often a section is long enough to justify flipping the aero back and forth at all.

What’s still to be seen

Neither the FIA nor the teams have publicly commented on the expected effect on overtaking or lap times — and for a circuit famous precisely for how hard it is to pass behind its concrete walls, five new active-aero zones sound promising on paper. Whether that holds up, or just adds one more variable for engineers to manage on Friday, won’t be clear until Sunday night.

Based on reporting by PlanetF1.