After a close fight for the win played out at the Canadian Grand Prix, all eyes are now on how the battle could unfold at the front this weekend in Spain. And with his victory in Montreal not being his most straightforward, Max Verstappen feels that there is a definite sense of the “unknown” heading into Barcelona.

On how much he is relishing the increasingly close scrap amongst the top four teams – given Mercedes’ strong outing in Montreal – Verstappen commented: “I think it’s always very tricky, in a way of course exciting.

“But every weekend you get to now is a bit more unknown [in] how you’re going to stack up against the field, but that’s good for Formula 1 I guess.”

The RB20 did not appear quite as at ease as in the earlier stages of the season during the last two rounds in Monaco and Canada, but Verstappen is hopeful that the nature of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya – a venue that has long been on the F1 calendar – can help the car get back to its best.

“We’ll try,” said the Dutchman. “This is normally a track that is a bit more straightforward. People have a bit more information about a track like this, it’s been on the calendar for a while. Of course from our side we are hoping to have a good weekend here.” On the other side of the Red Bull garage, Sergio Perez is hopeful of bouncing back from two challenging weekends of his own, having faced a Q1 elimination on Saturday before a DNF on Sunday during both events.

I’m very confident about [fighting back this weekend],” Perez said ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix. “I think we’ve had more than one issue in the last few races with the car, with the preparation and so on.

We’ve been [on] the back foot, so I’m looking forward tremendously to get back to our level that we had just a few races ago, and I believe that we can get back to that level.”

However, Perez acknowledges that having a three-place grid penalty – issued following an infringement in Montreal – will alter his approach “a lot”, adding: “It’s not ideal in a place like this to have that penalty, so we will try our best to try and minimise that.”

Canada was a particularly difficult weekend for Ferrari, with both cars failing to finish the race. Carlos Sainz is confident that the squad can learn from what went wrong and perform better in Barcelona.

“I think in a calendar of 24 races, there are always going to be races where you perform at a really high level and other races where you don’t get it right,” the Spaniard explained. “But I think we’ve learned from it.

“Now we come to a much more normal track, one of the first Europeans after Imola, and this is where we all know it very well. We know the set-up. We know how to do the out lap, how to do the push lap, and so hopefully we get it right and we are a lot more competitive.”

Charles Leclerc was blighted by an engine issue in Montreal, which ultimately forced him to retire from the running. The Monegasque says that the team found a “solution” and, like Sainz, he is expecting a much better weekend.

“The thing that we have been focusing [on] most in the last few days since we understood the engine issue was mostly the lack of performance on the Saturday, which again here I think we didn’t manage things the way we should have and there was probably more performance in the car,” Leclerc reflected on Canada.

I’m confident that we’ll be back to our level here in Barcelona.”

McLaren have enjoyed a good level of performance at most tracks so far during the 2024 season. Can they continue their run of form at the upcoming high-speed circuits?

“Good question,” remarked Lando Norris. “It’s definitely been a strength of ours in the past. I think others have improved quite a bit in these high-speed circuits, so just Ferrari, Red Bull have always been good. Now we see Mercedes looking closer to the fight.

Maybe [we are] a little less confident, but we don’t know yet. We’ve changed quite a few things on the car over the last few weeks and we’ve not been to necessarily high-speed circuits for a while.

“We’ll kind of wait and see what we do over the next day of practice and see if we can get the car performing like it has done in the past on high-speed circuits, and then I’ll be confident that we can… We should be able to fight.

“The whole season we’ve been strong, at every race. We’ve not had a bad weekend yet, so we’re showing consistency and that’s also a good thing for us.” With no planned upgrades this weekend, Oscar Piastri believes that it will be a “case of maximising what we’ve got” for the Woking-based outfit.

It’s very exciting ahead of this weekend because, ahead of Canada, we were driving on the simulator, trying these new upgrades and it seemed to be a big step forward,” Russell recalled as he spoke to the media in Barcelona.

“Honestly I didn’t really believe it when I was driving it on the simulator, and it turned out to be true in Canada. But we also had some indications [with] Canada, being very similar corners around the whole circuit, that we would be fast there.

“I think this is going to be a real test and if we can be fast this weekend, that bodes really well for the season.”

Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, sounded a cautious note, stating: “There’s no certainties in this industry. We’ve not been on a high-speed circuit yet, so we’ll see how it goes. I’m optimistic.”

Alpine is putting all options on the table, including a potential change to its Formula 1 driver line-up, to ensure there is no further trouble between its team-mates.

The French manufacturer nearly had both its cars out of the Monaco Grand Prix early on after Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly collided on the exit of Portier on the opening lap of the original start.

Ocon had made an optimistic lunge down the inside of Gasly on the entry to the corner and, as they exited, they clashed wheels.

The incident pitched Ocon into the air and badly damaged his car as it crashed back down, putting him out of the race. Gasly was able to continue and went on to score his first point of the season with a 10th-place finish.

Ocon later took full blame for the incident and apologised to the team. He was subsequently handed a 10-second penalty by the FIA, which will be converted to a five-place grid penalty for his next race.

Team principal Bruno Famin was clearly far from impressed about what happened, and he vented his anger from the pit wall as Canal+ interviewed him live.

He said: “We have a lot of damage on the car. The left-rear suspension is bent, the gearbox casing is damaged. We’re changing the whole gearbox, it’s a huge amount of work.

“This kind of incident is sad, it’s exactly what we didn’t want to see. Esteban’s dive was completely out of place, it was exactly what we didn’t want to see, and there will be the appropriate consequences.”

Asked how serious his response would be, one English translation of his words was: “We’re going to take drastic action.”

That has been interpreted by some as a direct threat about benching Ocon, for one race or more, as punishment for what was felt to have been a needless collision. However, the exact phrase Famin used in French – ‘trancher dans le vif” – is not something that can be translated directly into English.

What comes closest is ‘cut to the chase’ or ‘cut right into the core’, and effectively means making a definite call to get something done properly.

Famin did not issue any further public remarks about his stance on the incident or the subsequent action, beyond the official team press release on Sunday night.

There he said: “As a team, we will review and manage the incident between both cars behind closed doors. We must avoid situations that have the potential to compromise the team.”

However, Motorsport.com understands that Famin is fuming about what happened, and thinks that this latest collision is the final straw to a situation that has been bubbling away all season.

The team has been mindful since Bahrain that its competitive situation means it cannot let slip any opportunities to score points, so it has been instructing its drivers to take extra care when racing each other.

It seems such policy was in play in Monaco too, as Gasly revealed afterwards that the rear car was supposed to help the one ahead.

One other possibility could be for Alpine to go down the route that Mercedes did in 2016 after some worrying collisions between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

Back then Mercedes drafted up a code of conduct that both drivers agreed to abide by, and a clear warning that any indiscretion would likely result in a one-race ban being imposed.

It is understood that Famin spoke to both drivers after the Monaco GP, with Ocon clearly under the spotlight for having been the catalyst for the collision.

And it is not lost on Alpine’s senior management that the French driver has a history of troublesome times with team-mates that have resulted in contact – including with Fernando Alonso at the same team and Sergio Perez at Force India.

All eyes will now be on Enstone to see just how big a step it feels it needs to make to do what is best for the team.

No decision has been taken about what will be done, but it appears that he will do whatever it takes to guarantee no repeat in the future.

It is understood that a whole range of options are being considered – which could include financial penalties, team orders that totally prevent Ocon and Gasly from fighting each other for position, or even the nuclear option: a change of driver line-up.

One other possibility could be for Alpine to go down the route that Mercedes did in 2016 after some worrying collisions between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

Back then Mercedes drafted up a code of conduct that both drivers agreed to abide by, and a clear warning that any indiscretion would likely result in a one-race ban being imposed.

It is understood that Famin spoke to both drivers after the Monaco GP, with Ocon clearly under the spotlight for having been the catalyst for the collision.

And it is not lost on Alpine’s senior management that the French driver has a history of troublesome times with team-mates that have resulted in contact – including with Fernando Alonso at the same team and Sergio Perez at Force India.

All eyes will now be on Enstone to see just how big a step it feels it needs to make to do what is best for the team.