A chaotic Monaco Grand Prix weekend taught us plenty about the 2026 Formula 1 field.

Here's what our team learned from Monaco:

Antonelli's first special F1 moment is bad news for Russell 

Retiring from lead of the Canadian GP was quite obviously a big blow for George Russell's title bid but, in reality, the Monaco GP weekend was his biggest blow yet. 

Not because of the double-hit penalty in the race. That was galling and left Russell "struggling to comprehend how on earth this season is panning out in the way it has".

Russell is right to point to some bad luck, making the 68-point gap bigger than it could be.

But the bigger concern for Russell will be the margin with which Kimi Antonelli bodied him in qualifying (0.394s).

Antonelli has done plenty of great things in his short F1 career so far, but Monaco felt like truly the first 'special' weekend from beginning to end.

He took the risks needed in qualifying to secure pole for a Mercedes that was under serious threat from Red Bull and Ferrari, and avoided the errors that plagued far more experienced drivers in the race.

Antonelli's most complete weekend in F1 yet is the biggest sign that he has what it takes to take complete hold of this title race, one that is rapidly slipping away from Russell.

There does seem to be an almost Oscar Piastri-like trend of Russell struggling in low grip conditions in this car.

He's already admitted it might require a rethink of the driving style he's used since he got to F1.

But with five races in the next seven weekends, that's not going to be an easy thing to fix quickly.

Leclerc's got a chronic but sensitive 2026 problem

"Borderline dangerous" is how Charles Leclerc described the issue that he felt led to his Monaco GP retirement.

And while he said he was "weighing his words" carefully in blaming the brakes so specifically, clearly that wasn't carefully enough to escape the attention of supplier Brembo - which said it was surprised by Leclerc's media statements and felt it was "premature to draw definitive technical conclusions before the available data has been analysed".

You can read that response in full, but it's clear Leclerc feels as though this problem is seriously hampering him in 2026.

He was adamant he's been dealing with these issues at the previous two races - calling Monaco and Montreal "an absolute nightmare" while dealing with "cold tyre temperatures, the inconsistency, and the tyres being a lot more sensitive" - and he even referenced his own character, so convinced he was that this was something outside of his control.

"I'm always bluntly honest whenever I'm in front of the camera," Leclerc told Sky Sports F1. "But I'm not going to take any of it today."

He's battling braking inconsistency, and a feeling that the car is behaving differently corner to corner with no predictable pattern.

So, he's taking action and moving to team-mate Lewis Hamilton's brake configuration for the next race at Barcelona.

That was the one positive that Leclerc took from the weekend - "that I'll have a solution for the brakes next weekend, that's it" - and even then he expressed regret that he hadn't made that change sooner.

But such an explicit statement does make the next race a big test of those claims, or whether there's something more fundamental limiting him as well.

Gasly was robbed of more than just a result

The 15 seconds of silence before Pierre Gasly responded to The Race's question about how hard it was to comprehend his lost podium said an awful lot about his heartbreak.

From the joys of crossing the line and thinking he had finished third, to the celebratory clenched fists of his slow down lap (Alpine had incredibly not told him the situation before the chequered flag), the comedown when told that two pitlane speeding offences left him seventh in the classification was almost too much to take in.

This was exacerbated because Gasly's offences were down to the same issue - of essentially short-cutting the pitlane rather than going too fast - that had caught a host of other drivers out.

But it was his emotional response after the initial silence that made it clear this was about more than just a good result having gone away. This was about fairness.

"I don't think there is anything that could hurt me more right now," he said, as he battled to fight back the tears. "It's 10 years I'm f***ing working my ass off for this type of moment, and we did everything right.

"Standing on that podium in front of all the fans that turn up - this is the type of moment that, for me, can't be taken away from us by unfair reasons.

"What's going on right now is not right and hopefully they can make the right calls."

The sense was very much that it was the inequity of it all; of having driven to his very best and then having it taken away through nothing he could control.

Gasly knew about the pitlane speed limits; knew that Alpine's system is set quite conservatively at 59.5km/h (so 0.5km/h below the limit); knew that he had activated it early; and knew about the entry configuration.

This is why Alpine is going for a right of review to challenge the penalty.

But even if Alpine achieves something - a change of procedures in the future is more likely that a change of result - it won't help Gasly make up for knowing what he lost in Monaco.

The most wasteful team in Monaco wasn't Ferrari

Ferrari probably did miss its best chance to win a grand prix in 2026 so far, but it wasn't the most wasteful team in Monaco.

Audi was looking better than it had all year on Friday in Monaco, only for that to result in Gabriel Bortoleto crashing in qualifying and Nico Hulkenberg underdelivering en route to 13th place on the grid.

More reliability problems meant Bortoleto had to start from the pitlane, and given the pace he showed fighting back to 11th, it likely cost him a points finish.

Hulkenberg crashing into Carlos Sainz's Williams (and picking up a penalty for it) at the hairpin definitely cost him a points finish.

Audi racing director Alan McNish rightly said, "the result doesn't reflect the pace we showed this weekend", but the team and drivers only have themselves to blame for that.

That strong pace appeared to be down to Monaco limiting its engine deficit, coupled with some unexpected driveability gains that gave its drivers more confidence.

It means Audi still only has two points to show for a debut campaign that's promised far more.

'No positives' for points scorer Aston Martin 

Aston Martin Honda may have nicked an unlikely point in Monaco, but the message from Fernando Alonso was clear: "Zero positives from this weekend."

That was prior to Alonso knowing the outcome of Sergio Perez's stewards hearing, which gave him his unexpected point, but what followed was a detailed breakdown of why each circuit so far has exposed a new weakness with the Aston Martin-Honda. 

Alonso said: "In Australia, we found our engine was very down. In China, we found our energy was very down. In Monaco, we found our chassis is down. In Canada or Miami, we found that our gearbox was very bad. 

"I think every circuit exposed some of our weaknesses in the car. But the good thing is that [there] is a very good understanding on what action is needed in each of the areas."

Alonso and Lance Stroll are simply playing a waiting game until significant car and engine packages arrive in the summer. 

"For the second part of the year, the package that we tried to bring all in once are tackling all those problems individually," Alonso said.

"So I have full faith and trust on the team, because our impression and our feeling is that that car will change dramatically what we are facing now. 

"We just need to wait another four or five races of painful results."

McLaren progress is slower than it looked 

Monaco was what Lando Norris labelled a "reality check" for McLaren as its two biggest problems were laid bare.

They're quite simply a performance deficit and a reliability problem. 

McLaren struggled for performance in Monaco for two reasons. Firstly, the car is too gentle on its tyres for a circuit where putting energy into the tyres is challenging. But more importantly, McLaren is simply lacking grip and downforce compared to the other top teams. 

After it almost won at Suzuka and did win the Miami sprint race, it was tempting to declare McLaren firmly in the lead fight. 

But Monaco's circuit characteristics have shown how much work McLaren still has to do, and how it's fallen behind where it wanted to be with its car. 

"We know that compared to what we would like to be with our car, we are a bit behind in the trajectory," team principal Andrea Stella said on Saturday.

And after the race, Stella admitted "Ferrari and Mercedes were operating in a completely different dimension", so McLaren has a "significant amount of work to do back at the factory to make the car fundamentally faster". 

Norris had what Stella described as "an anomaly with the power unit that had not presented itself prior to the race".

It ensures McLaren still has the fewest grand prix laps completed of any team in 2026 and a meagre 58% grand prix finishing rate. 

That's unsurprisingly prompting an extensive review into the issues along with engine partner Mercedes. 

Both the works team and its customer are having issues, but right now McLaren's continuing to bear the brunt of it - meaning its title defence is taking one or two blows from both performance and reliability woes. 

These engines are a problem even at their best

A key pre-weekend narrative was that Monaco would negate the biggest negatives of the 2026 regulations and deliver the most normal weekend of the year.

It was probably the most normal weekend of the year driving-wise, and rule criticisms barely featured among the main storylines, barring Alonso's biggest criticism yet (which probably wasn't aided by him having to drive the worst car in Monaco).

And yet it was still far from normal.

There were plenty of references to drivers having to make sure they were doing the right things to start the lap, and doing things they've never had to do to prepare for a lap around Monaco.

The standout feature was the erratic behaviour some drivers clearly experienced under braking - Stroll blamed engine braking rather than the broken up track for causing his crash at Antony Noghes.

If the battery can't recharge - and the Honda is hardly the strongest in that area - then you lose a lot of the engine braking.

It moves beyond just an interesting technical detail or nuanced challenge into something more random and uncontrolled.

So yes, we saw the engines at their best, but if that's their best and there are still problems, then it just goes to show why it's all being changed so quickly and why it should be such a priority to fix what's possible for next year.

Ferrari's mega starts are gone

A few weeks ago, the common assumption in the paddock would have been that put a Ferrari and a Mercedes on the front row at Monaco, and it will be the red car that easily gets to Ste Devote first.

The mega starts that were a hallmark of the early stages of 2026, allied to Mercedes' struggles off the line, were a notable tool in Ferrari's armoury and would have been perfect for Monaco.

But things have changed in recent weeks and, where once Ferrari was well ahead, Monaco gave us confirmation that any advantage it had on that front is now gone.

After the red flag restart delivered Lewis Hamilton the perfect opportunity from the front row to snatch the lead from Antonelli, the positions ended up unchanged.

Some of the answers for Ferrari's edge having gone is that the start procedures were altered on safety grounds to help others spool up their turbos better.

But another is that Mercedes has made some significant gains in better perfecting its getaways, which has included work on its start software, grip predictions, and even Antonelli's clutch paddle.

And there is another fascinating factor in play: how Antonelli himself has become clinical in his execution.

As Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said: "What's so interesting for me is there's this new generation of drivers that have come up with a lot of simulator work.

"It's like they have more storage capacity cognitively. Once the process is learned, it's stored, and that's it."

Monaco was not a one-off.

Cadillac points aren't a pipe dream (surprisingly)

A completely brand-new F1 team finishing in the top 10 on the road in only its sixth race is a remarkable achievement - and one that's genuinely surprising.

Yes, Perez benefitted from chaos and penalties ahead of him, but he's been battling with the tail of the midfield on merit at consecutive races.

Even Perez getting to within a tenth of Q2 was something of a disappointment on Saturday, just because he was threatening to have the pace to advance.

So even though a penalty for what was clearly an avoidable error has unnecessarily denied Cadillac a first point, it's proof that it's not a pipe dream to think it could score later in the year.

That is truly remarkable for a new team that already did well to never even be close to falling outside of the 107% rule in qualifying in its first weekend.

It feels significant too on a weekend where Cadillac debuted what is arguably a field-leading motorhome - a far cry from the first efforts of previous new teams. Of course, a fancy hospitality suite didn't propel Perez into the top 10, but it is a proper statement of intent.

It adds to a growing feeling that Cadillac is doing all the right things to become a competitive F1 force - and perhaps even a points-scoring one earlier than expected.

Albon's 'most normal' weekend still had problems

Given all the chaos that followed in the closing stages, it's easy to forget a key mid-race narrative was the intra-team Williams tactics and Alex Albon and Sainz creating a gap for each other.

It was a repeat of their (and other teams') controversial tactics last year that were prompted by the two-stop pitstop rule.

But given that rule's now gone, the presence of them in the 2026 race probably means they've become a staple of Monaco now. Even if it makes for somewhat uncomfortable viewing, it's an open goal for midfield teams.

You may have heard Albon's frustration over the team radio with the tactics - "we're being too smart with this, guys!" - but he said after the race: "If anything, I was frustrated more because I felt like I let the team down."

That's because Albon was managing a deployment issue, so he felt "vulnerable" to the cars behind and was kicking himself for a mistake (compounded by the deployment issue) that allowed Arvid Lindblad through.

It was still what Albon described as his "most normal weekend" and "cleanest" of 2026 so far, even if he's "still not, to be honest, comfortable with the car, but getting to grips with it".

It did include Albon's first intra-team qualifying victory of 2026 and eighth place gave him the same amount of points as he's scored in the entirety of the last eight months prior to Monaco.