Everything we learned from F1's first day back

After an unplanned month away, the Formula 1 teams and drivers were back to business in the Miami Grand Prix paddock on Thursday.

Here are our main takeaways from the day's media sessions and paddock digging.

New rules, same old complaints

If F1's bosses had hoped that the rules revamp agreed for Miami would serve to silence driver complaints about the 2026 regulations, they were quickly disappointed on Thursday.

Lance Stroll had got the ball rolling with a remarkable takedown of where things stand for rules that he says are fundamentally flawed. 

You can read his full tirade here and you've probably seen plenty of it on social media, but his basic gist was well summed up with: "I think we're still far away from proper F1 cars."

Others were not quite so aggressive in what they were saying, but the messaging was pretty consistent that while the modifications for Miami are a welcome step there is still so much more that is needed.

Max Verstappen labelled the changes a "tickle" as he suggested that making any more progress than had been achieved was difficult because "F1 is a very complex and political sport."

World champion Lando Norris joined those suggesting that the Miami tweaks were like putting a plaster over problems – whereas the proper solution would involve hardware changes.

"It's tough to go that much further honestly," he said. "I think when you start to cover up some problems, you also reveal a lot of issues. There's only so much you can do with the rules that you have to keep things within."

Not all were anti though. The biggest voice supporting the tweaks was George Russell – whose Mercedes team has hit the ground running in the new rules era.

He said that the FIA had been tasked with solving certain things with the changes, and the results achieved that. He also laughed off calls that F1 should have reduced the battery power to 200kW.

"I think the biggest concern was lift and coast on a quali lap. That's now gone," he said.

"Losing major speed at the end of the straight on a quali lap. That's now gone.

"Reducing the closing speed with overtaking. That's now gone.

"The suggestions of having 200 kilowatts from the engine [MGU-K] we may as well go and race F2 if that's the case and that's what people want." - Jon Noble

Wet race is a concern

A lot of weather talk in the middle of this week has focused on the threat of storms and lightning causing trouble with the race on Sunday. More relevant, though, is the prospect of simply driving in the wet…

That's not something most of the grid have done with the 2026 cars. And with less downforce than last year, unpredictable power levels due to complex engine rules, plus the effects of driving in straight mode and corner mode, it's a prospect that almost nobody seems to be looking forward to!

Overtake mode has been banished if it's wet, so that's one safety element taken care of, but it doesn't satisfy all concerns. Another factor is that warm-up with the 2026 intermediates is apparently very tricky.  

A couple of drivers sampled their cars in the wet during shakedowns in January – Kimi Antonelli and Pierre Gasly - said it was "very tricky" and "the most extreme" experience they've had respectively!

Throw in the fact that this track doesn't seem to have great drainage as it is quite flat, hence aquaplaning on the way to the grid in the wet sprint race last year, and it could be chaotic even if F1 avoids the worst case scenario of a storm massively disrupting the schedule. - Scott Mitchell-Malm

Mercedes holds back on upgrades

Ahead of a weekend where it was anticipated that everyone would be bringing massive upgrade packages, one of the surprises on Thursday was world championship leader Kimi Antonelli revealing that Mercedes would not be.

Off the back of its victories in the first three races, Mercedes is well aware that it cannot just sit back and expect its form to continue if it does not bring developments.

But it seems that the squad had elected to hold back on a major revamp for now.

As Antonelli said: "It's going to be a very interesting weekend for us. We're not really bringing anything, to be fair - just very small things - whilst other teams are bringing big upgrades, such as Ferrari and McLaren."

The level of upgrades from each team has not been officially announced yet, but spies in the pitlane have already spotted some interesting developments – including a fair few Ferrari-style exhaust wings as well as Red Bull adopting its version of the Ferrari upside down rear wing.

If Antonelli is correct – and not unleashing some diversion tactics – it could point to Mercedes facing a bit more of a challenge until it brings along whatever upgrade it is planning.

Things could be tighter at the front until then. - JN

Williams will take all year to lose weight

The Williams FW48 will be lighter in Miami this weekend than it was previously. But as Carlos Sainz warned, it "will take almost the whole year to get all the extra weight we have in this car out of the way, so it's going to be more small steps".

The reason is simple: while getting weight off is a guaranteed performance gain, it's a resource-intensive exercise and Williams has had to be selective about how it has pursued the lightweighting programme.

"We've made a step, but we know there's bigger carrots in other areas in terms of the weight," said Alex Albon. "We have taken weight out of the car but it's not the main area. There's a big push now to just speed that process up and that's coming later in the year. We've done a step but we still have a way to go."

Albon added that the complications of the cost cap means that Williams is being forced to be strategic in balancing up its aerodynamic improvements and the weight reduction, which he characterises as two separate projects.

"There is a huge carrot in the weight of the car so you can prioritise a lot of weight areas," said Albon when asked by The Race about the complexities of managing these processes. "Weight is a known factor, unlike aero, which you can have questions on. It's almost like you have two programmes working together, and in a cost cap world you have to be very selective about how you achieve it."

So for now, Williams is lighter having cut what started out as a deficit understood to be almost 30kg, but still not light enough. And it won't hit that point for some time. - Edd Straw

Alonso's latest stance on his F1 future

The current conventional wisdom on Fernando Alonso's F1 future is that Aston Martin's torrid start to life under the new regs has not made him likelier to retire - one, because he will be loathe to leave on such a sour note; and two, because Aston Martin's form means his seat is under less outside pressure from rival candidates.

Alonso reinforced the idea of him staying during the April break, saying - as reported by the BBC - that this was "hopefully not the last season" of his time in F1.

He didn't really double down on Thursday in Miami. "At the moment I haven't sat with myself yet, to think about it," he insisted. He did, however, make two things clear. Firstly, he expects that a decision will be needed "around summertime or right after summer". Secondly, he expects he will be able to make this decision on his own terms.

"You cannot be, never, 100% sure about it," he said of Aston Martin keeping him on. "But I'm performing, I think, well enough to show the team that I can give them the results if the car is competitive, I'm helping the team as much as I can. I think it [the decision] could be more up to me."

Alonso feels he is at his "100%" still - and certainly whatever the flawed AMR26 has allowed him to show hasn't been evidence to the contrary. He says he will leave if he's declined in performance, but he's not declined. And "leaving the sport with a bad taste is not always the best thing. But these things you cannot choose - when to stop racing. Only [Nico] Rosberg did!".

But the siren call of outside-of-F1 racing is still felt keenly. "It's probably arguably better racing outside F1, that's why some drivers now, they are finding more fun outside of F1. I found that 10 years ago, when I moved to Indy in 2017 for one race [the Indy 500] and this kind of thing. I know what I can expect outside. But there are moments in your life and in your career that you also need F1."

He referenced again his desire to win the Dakar Rally - to reinforce his status as a modern beacon of racing versatility - and to maybe race at the Le Mans 24 Hours again, perhaps with a fellow big name at his side.

"It's something that - it's not in my plans yet, to race Le Mans again, but if opportunity comes, you know also that there are some other drivers here that may do Le Mans in the future - and we are in touch, if that happens, to do it together." - Val Khorounzhiy

Aston vibrations may finally be fixed

Aston Martin and Honda hope to take a step forward with various car and engine improvements in Miami – including something that should fix most of their infamous driver vibration problems. 

High-frequency vibrations have been a major feature of their season so far, first as it triggered major reliability problems with Honda's battery which was being shaken to failure, and second as it caused significant discomfort for the drivers due to vibrations transmitted through the steering wheel. 

At the Japanese Grand Prix, Aston Martin quietly trialled an experimental component in Friday practice that reduced the vibrations a lot. But it chose not to race it, seemingly due to reliability concerns with new, untested parts. 

That fix will also not be used in Miami – because it's been superseded by an improvement at source.

Honda has hardware changes in Miami, which it is still referring to as "countermeasures" but could actually mean a minor specification change, that it believes have resulted in a tangible improvement for battery and driver vibrations. 

This should mean the end of this as a talking point, but the drivers will be the judge of that. - SMM

There's still tension over big Suzuka crash

Having become the unwitting stars of F1's Japanese Grand Prix and subsequent safety-related deliberations over the new rules, Ollie Bearman and Franco Colapinto clearly still face some more tension over the nature of the former's Suzuka accident.

Bearman made that clear by doubling down on his criticism of Colapinto in the break, calling the crash "unacceptable" on an appearance in the Up to Speed podcast. And Colapinto admitted on Thursday seeing those quotes bothered him.

"Not going to comment too much about it, I'm just going to say that I sent him straight away a message, he never responded, so he didn't talk to me, I did talk to him. The thing I'm most happy about is that he's fine, nothing bad happened. Of course a big damage for their team but it's part of racing," said Colapinto in Miami.

"Of course not happy with his comments but hopefully we can fix it soon."

Bearman, for his part, says there's "no grudges" as "I'm not that type of person", but it is clear that neither has particularly budged on their original interpretation of the crash. 

Something to hash out once Bearman responds to that Colapinto message, which he says he "didn't see"? Probably not. A month on it's likely a case of 'let bygones be bygones', at least until the next (hopefully much less consequential) on-track skirmish. - VK