With shock outcomes over engine upgrade permissions and Monaco Grand Prix penalties emerging on day one at the Barcelona GP, it’s been a busy Thursday in the Formula 1 paddock.

Here are our main takeaways.

Engine rule change won't silence all criticisms

Approval for a multi-step rule change for F1's engines across 2027 and 2028 was met with a broadly warm reception from drivers - but that doesn't mean all the criticism is going to end.

Asked by The Race if the cars would be nicer in 2027, with the move from a 57/43 to a 58/42 split between internal combustion engine and electrical power, Sergio Perez was clear: "No, I don't think so".

Asked to expand, Perez said: "At the end of the day, we're going to have the same engines and it's going to be very similar. It's not going to change the world. It's never going to be back to what we used to have.

"So I don't expect that it will be much of a change."

Crucially for F1, it didn't get a fiery response from arch-rules critic Max Verstappen, simply a pragmatic one.

"I do think that it was nice to see that changes are being made earlier this year, but then also for next year," Verstappen said.

"I would have hoped that next year would have been already, let's say, what we get in '28. But I also, of course, understand that there are sometimes politics involved for that, but at least the changes that they are making are heading in the right direction.

"So I guess that's a good thing."

The consensus among drivers appears to be what Esteban Ocon described as "That's the best we could have done with how the current engines were built and the manufacturers, what they had in store for now.

"You could not throw away all the development that there is. So, yeah, waiting for the next one [engine cycle]."

Until then, expect plenty more gripes, especially at a circuit where the cars will be energy poor again after the energy-rich outlier of Monaco. - Josh Suttill

Verstappen's puzzled by ADUO outcome too

Red Bull's status as F1's 'best engine', at least according to the FIA's ADUO verdict, has surprised a lot of people in the paddock - including Red Bull itself, and star driver Max Verstappen.

The new Red Bull Ford Powertrains project is the only engine that will not be permitted extra upgrades for this year or next because it is deemed to have developed the benchmark V6 internal combustion engine.

The same system has also judged Mercedes, which has dominated F1 2026 so far and is widely felt to have the best overall power unit as well as a strong chassis, to be entitled to one upgrade, while Red Bull's other rivals can develop even more.

Verstappen said "we were all a little bit surprised with that news", hence Red Bull seeking clarification from the FIA - which is double-checking its work, but has never made public the criteria for how it judges V6 engine performance (beyond that it has nothing to do with the hybrid element).

This was to avoid manufacturers gaming the system, although some people in the paddock believe this has clearly been done anyway.  

"We're just a bit confused with suddenly being portrayed as the best, because we don't feel like that," said Verstappen. - Scott Mitchell-Malm

'Very impressive' Antonelli has rivals' respect

Kimi Antonelli is on a special run of form right now, and he's won plenty of plaudits from his fellow drivers.

Four-time world champion Verstappen called it "very impressive" that Antonelli is performing this consistently at just 19 years old - and that comes from one of the very few people who've also been at that level as a teenager.

"He's a great talent. I knew that. I could see that coming," Verstappen said.

"Of course, in a rookie season, you have to make mistakes. But then it's about how you learn from them."

Charles Leclerc said he's "always considered Kimi extremely highly, looking at him in the junior categories".

"The first year [in F1] has been challenging and to do such a huge step forward from the first step to the second step, I don't think anybody expected that and I think he has surprised many, many people.

"But not that I underestimated him because seeing him in the junior categories, I've always said that Kimi was very, very special and that he will be very successful, but to see the step from the first year to the second year is particularly impressive."

The comparison with Leclerc stepping into a frontrunning car in only his second year in F1 in 2019 with Ferrari was put to Leclerc, who said "In a way, you don't have much to lose" in that scenario - pointing out that he wasn't expected to beat his four-time world champion team-mate Sebastian Vettel so benefitted from exceeding expectations.

He added: "So in this situation I quite enjoyed it and I can see that Kimi is enjoying it as well and I don't think that he's feeling too much the pressure of being in this situation.

"I've always thought he's a person that has no filter, you can feel the kid in him still, and so he's very relaxed about it." - JS

Aston Martin needs to 'protect' its drivers this weekend

In the words of Aston Martin chief trackside officer Mike Krack, Barcelona is "normally a reality check for your pace".

And that's why Krack talked about needing to "protect [the drivers] maybe a little bit from getting too much negative out of this, because there is nothing they can do about it".

The team is braced for a tough weekend, a harsh crash back to reality after the relative high of Fernando Alonso nicking the final point in Monaco.

Barcelona is, of course, the scene of Alonso's last F1 win 13 years ago. That's an even larger gap than between Alonso's first F1 race and his last win!

He said this is "probably my last Barcelona race in Formula 1" - remember, Barcelona isn't on the calendar again until 2028 - but he said he'll decide if he'll come back in 2027 by the summer.

The summer will also feature Aston Martin Honda's first major car and engine upgrade packages, which will surely have a big influence on that decision.

Until then, it's simply about ticking off the weekends and driving around the growing list of problems that are being exposed with the car and engine.

The latest is gear shifting and engine braking inconsistencies that caused Lance Stroll's crash in Monaco.

At least as Stroll pointed out, "there's more runoff here, so it's less of an issue".

More space if your car fires you off the track, being a positive? Bleak stuff. - JS

Russell 'driving on instincts' to solve his woes

George Russell's bruising Monaco weekend included the biggest clue so far of what exactly is going wrong with his title bid: his driving style isn't meshing with the 2026 Mercedes in the way that team-mate Antonelli's has.

He'd suggested he was going to look at changing his driving style but Russell appeared to row back on that suggestion on Thursday at Barcelona, instead highlighting the tyre factor.

"The tyres are quite vastly different this year due to the tyre pressures that we are being prescribed by Pirelli," Russell explained.

"These are the highest tyre pressures we've ever run, probably ever in Formula 1, but they were still there in Melbourne and China, and Canada when I was performing very well, so I've probably been a little bit too harsh in speaking in the moment to be honest.

"I didn't have a lot of confidence in Monaco with the tyres and the car, and that is a circuit where it punishes you."

That's why Russell is "not going to get too caught up with the data and drive on my instincts" at Barcelona.

Russell said he "rarely looked at any data" in 2025 and that worked for him, so he's hoping repeating that will deliver the turnaround he needs to start eroding the 68-point gulf he currently faces to Antonelli. - JS

Gasly's Monaco reaction wasn't what it seemed

Pierre Gasly has finally snapped out of emotion of what he called "the hardest day I've ever had in F1" in Monaco.

It took Gasly a couple of days after losing his podium there - wrongly, it turns out - to calm down and while he won't get the podium back, the admission of a screw-up at least vindicates his and Alpine's conviction they'd done nothing wrong.

It might make it sting more first, but at least it offers closure. And regrouping in Spain just a few days later has also allowed Gasly to clarify something else about the way Monaco went down.

His extremely raw reaction to crossing the line in third place, punching the air several times around the in-lap, gained huge social media attention after the race.

It was interpreted as him not knowing he had penalties, which made Alpine look quite cruel as some assumed it had not told Gasly he had lost the podium.

But Gasly did know already he had the penalties as they were communicated over the radio in-race. He just wanted to mark the moment his own way - celebrating a podium he already knew he'd lost and wouldn't be able to experience for real.

"it was my way of having my moment," he said. "That's how I wanted to deal with the situation. To share any type of emotion I had." - SMM

F1 2026 tyres have a quirk that's not easy to master

Amid F1's 2026 obsessions over energy starvation, power unit quirks and going slower in corners to go faster, there is a big change in a critical area of performance that has not been in the spotlight much – until now.

It comes from the tyres, with a fast growing consensus in the paddock that a change in characteristics with Pirelli's 2026 rubber is pushing teams and drivers to alter their approach to corners.

A combination of F1's 2026 cars delivering less downforce than the previous generation, allied to tyre pressures having ramped up a fair bit, has led to them being very sensitive on corner entry.

In particular, they do not appear to be particularly robust when it comes to the transition between braking and turn in – which is causing a few headaches.

As McLaren boss Andrea Stella remarked: "We do observe that the phase of entering the corner when you brake and combine is very delicate. It's very difficult to avoid the tyres to lock."

Williams driver Alex Albon believed that driving styles were having to be adapted to cope with what was a quite complex scenario – and one that appears to suit certain cars and drivers more.

As he said at Barcelona on Thursday: "I think it's  gone under the radar a little bit.

"The tyres are not easy, and even myself, I've seen these differences, even between Carlos [Sainz], for example, where the way that you energise the tyre and your natural driving style can benefit the tyres in a positive or negative way, quite quickly. In previous years it was less of a thing." - Jon Noble

Ferrari drivers diverged on brake spec since Japan

Leclerc will ditch Brembo brake discs for the Carbon Industrie material favoured by his Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton, as Leclerc bids to bounce back from a nightmare home race in Monaco, but he doesn't "expect a revolution" in how they perform.

Nevertheless, it will no doubt be a useful move if he can achieve the temperature balance front to rear that he was missing in Monaco and achieve the "consistency" he said is "all I need" when The Race's Edd Straw asked him what characteristics he was seeking from his Ferrari's brakes.

Leclerc has struggled for two races in a row at tracks where braking performance and feel is usually very important for lap time. It might not be so critical at sweeping Barcelona, but given Hamilton's growing assurance within Ferrari you can understand Leclerc's desire to eliminate the variable and get his own season back on track.

It seems the root of Leclerc's trouble is a decision taken back in March, during the Japanese Grand Prix, to split the brake specifications between the Ferraris - apparently something Hamilton pushed hard for on his side of the garage, as he has long preferred the feel of the CI material.

"I changed my brakes in Japan," Hamilton confirmed. "It's something I'd asked for a long time ago. 

"Ultimately, it's down to driver preference, and feel. Both of us tested the option that I'm racing, and Charles didn't want it in the end. 

"He chose the one that he's on, and now he's changed his mind."

Leclerc called the splitting of brake specs "a decision that we made as a team" rather than one he drove himself, but however you want to split the hairs on this Leclerc confirmed: "the last two weekends have been more difficult than I anticipated and now we're going in the direction of Lewis".

Leclerc concedes Hamilton has been "fully on it since the very first race" of 2026 and been "very very strong", feeling Hamilton finds this new generation of cars "more natural" to drive than the ground-effect ones that preceded it. 

But perhaps this brake spec episode is also an example of an old master using his vast experience to gain a small competitive edge - even if it might only end up lasting a few races. - Ben Anderson