Eyes on Monaco: What the F1 teams said after the Miami and Montreal Grands Prix

Mercedes

A weekend that mixed genuine promise - its first major upgrade of 2026 landed strongly - with deep frustration after a battery failure robbed George Russell of what could have been an excellent result.

James Allison, technical director: "It was a big weekend for us. Key because it was the weekend where we introduced our first major upgrade for the year and we were looking for it to be strong. It was, but a weekend that was otherwise extremely good from a performance point of view was marred by the disappointment we all feel for letting George down with the reliability of the car. It was an engine kill caused by a failure in the battery, which just suffered a catastrophic failure a third of the way into the race and brought George's race to an end there. We could see enough at the end of the race that the battery was fairly unhappy. Some heat damage there. And we'll have to figure out in the coming days and weeks exactly what caused that and put it right.

“And it's important to know that this is an unusual season from a development race point of view. These are new rules. The development rate is really steep. Something like a quarter of a second a month."

Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton was dominant and confident all weekend, while Charles Leclerc recovered well despite a trickier time, and team principal Fred Vasseur is taking encouragement from a strong result at a race where upgrades from rivals were expected to bite.

Fred Vasseur, team principal: "Overall, it's a strong weekend with a strong performance on the team. The confidence was there and in these conditions, very cold conditions, poor grip, that you need to have the confidence to build up the energy into the tyres and it went very well. It was a bit more difficult for the opposite reasons with Charles. He was not very confident from the beginning, but overall it's a good result for him to bring the car back to P4 and score good points. Now, we were expecting a tough weekend in Montreal because the competitors brought upgrades, and we didn't. It's probably positive for us. Now we have to be focused on the next one, but Monaco is a completely different story with different conditions, and we have to perform next weekend also."

McLaren

Andrea Stella is candid about where the MCL39 sits in the pecking order, but sees the car's low-speed strength as a genuine advantage heading into Monaco.

Andrea Stella, team principal: "I think when we look at the overlay based on the GPS speed, we can see that Ferrari is definitely a competitive chassis in the corners. Like the first sector, they've always been very competitive, and it's not only a low-speed sector, but it's also a sector with kerbing, and normally these features tend to be worked in a track like Monaco.

“To continue on that, we definitely can say that at the current level of development, the McLaren car is probably best suited for low-speed corners rather than medium and high-speed corners, where we see Ferrari and Mercedes being superior. So, this should set us in a good position for Monaco."

Red Bull

A weekend of deliberate experimentation rather than pure results, with Red Bull prepared to sacrifice short-term performance for long-term learning as it tries to unlock the full potential of its new-generation car.

Laurent Mekies, team principal: "As soon as we are in a situation where we don't feel Max [Verstappen] and Isack [Hadjar] are not at ease to push, we take risks. That's what we did last year, that's what this team has been doing for a number of years, that's what we've done this weekend. So as soon as we are there, we are going to try things; it's only the beginning of the year, it's the beginning of this generation of cars, we are going to try things with our drivers to unlock something, even if it's costing us something. And you learn, you learn for the [qualifying] conditions and for the race conditions, so a lot of learning this weekend, how far are we from the ultimate potential of the car here, nobody really knows."

Alpine

Twelve points, a best-ever finish for Franco Colapinto, and an extended lead in fifth in the constructors' standings - Alpine take the positives from Montreal while acknowledging there is still plenty more performance to find.

Flavio Briatore, de facto team principal: "Congratulations to the entire team on this result where we have scored 12 points. We executed a good strategy, the drivers did an excellent job on track and we now extend our advantage in P5 in the Constructors' Championship. We had a difficult day on Friday, but the team has worked hard to understand a few things on the car and now we come away with a positive team result. I am happy for Franco for his best ever finish in Formula One in P6, so well done to him for his effort. On Pierre's side, it is a good recovery from P14 on the grid. There is a lot of hard work ahead if we are to improve our competitiveness. The drivers still share similar feedback on the car and there is much more performance for us to find going into Monaco next time."

Racing Bulls

Sixth in the constructors' standings with growing optimism ahead of Monaco, where the team's low-speed strengths and recent upgrades could make it a genuine points contender again.

Alan Permane, team principal: "After today's race we move to P6 in the Championship. With much of the season left to go, there are plenty of opportunities to secure points. The car has worked exceptionally well here with the low-speed corners and we've certainly benefited from our upgrades to the car. With Monaco being only low speed corners, there's hope and confidence for a strong race."

Haas

Haas driver Ollie Bearman earned points, but the team knows from experience that points can vanish just as unpredictably as they arrive, and Haas heads to Monaco needing a stronger all-round performance.

Ollie Bearman: "I don't know if we deserved points today based on our performance, but we'll take it as there's been weekends where we definitely did and received nothing for it. In general, this has been a really challenging weekend for us, but to get points is good. We could've got more, but we had a slow pit stop, so we need to understand why that happened. It was very slippery and challenging out there, and I chose to start on the used soft as I thought that would help me on Lap 1, but we ended up doing three more formation laps, so I don't know if I benefited much. I don't think we're leaving with a big smile on our face, but we have a week before we need to come back strong in Monaco."

Williams

James Vowles is building something, and the rate of development is the clearest signal that the foundations laid at Grove are working. Vowles underlines that both Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz are convinced by this progress.

James Vowles, team principal: "I want to demonstrate we have the capability to fight back up the field and add performance at a very high rate. And we are doing that at the moment. It's important to me and it's important to our board, because what it shows you is all the systems and fundamentals you've put in place are still good in that regard. Same with the drivers. The drivers aren't here or interested in being just into Q3, but they are interested in being demonstrated that we have facilities behind us that are able to fix and remedy problems when they come up. And I think that's the main element.”

Audi

A difficult strategic call at the start (choosing intermediate tyres over slicks) undid what had been a cleaner, more consistent weekend for Audi - but Allan McNish is pointing to underlying progress compared to Miami.

Allan McNish, racing director: "Overall, the race was heavily influenced by the weather conditions and the tyre decisions at the start. It was a finely balanced call between compounds, and while we opted for the intermediate tyre, based on the information available at the time, in hindsight, the delayed start ultimately meant it was not the ideal strategy.

“From that point onwards, it was always going to be difficult to recover track position, and we ultimately finished P12 and P13. While there are some positives to take from the weekend in terms of reliability and completing every session cleanly, there is still work to do to convert our pace into stronger race results.

“That said, we do leave Montreal feeling that we've taken a step forward compared to Miami, particularly in terms of consistency and overall execution across the weekend."

Cadillac

The new American outfit is framing every race as a learning exercise, and Graeme Lowdon is upbeat about what their most competitive weekend to date means heading into the European season.

Graeme Lowdon, team principal: "Even challenging races can yield useful learnings, and that's what we can take away from this weekend. Overall, it's been our most competitive weekend to date. We introduced some further upgrades, which have given us another step up in performance and we were able to race on pace in the midfield. Operationally, we know where we need to improve, but everything we do is being done for the first time. We'll address as we go into the European season. Monaco represents a very different challenge to anything we've seen before so we will debrief, regroup and come back even stronger."

Aston Martin

Aston Martin is making incremental progress on both the chassis and the power unit's torque delivery, though both the team and its engine partner Honda are clear that there is still significant work ahead.

Mike Krack, chief trackside officer: "I think we can still make some steps. I think we are not that perfect that we say, if we have like one or two upgrades, we are optimum on everything. So I think there is a lot of work to still be done, which we will do over the next weeks and months. So we are not there yet. I don't think we are on optimum with everything on the car we have at the moment."