Daniel Ricciardo completed a clean sweep of Thursday practice for the Monaco Grand Prix by topping the second session of the day.
The Red Bull driver set the pace in the morning, but it was teammate Max Verstappen that took top spot 19 minutes into the afternoon session with a lap of 1m12.468s using hypersoft Pirellis.
Verstappen eventually worked down to a 1m12.071s on his first set of tyres and was set to improve again when the session was red-flagged after 25 minutes.
This was to allow repairs to the track on the run from Casino to Mirabeau, with race director Charlie Whiting visiting the scene and some welding work done on what appeared to be a drain cover in the middle of the track. When the session restarted after a 15-minute interruption, Verstappen went out on a fresh set of hypersofts and, like many, struggled with traffic. He improved his time by a slightly to a 1m12.035s, although that run came to an end when he clipped the rear of Romain Grosjean’s Haas at the hairpin while letting past Ricciardo and subsequently returned to the pits.
Ricciardo opted to complete his qualifying simulation run later than most, eventually hitting the front with a lap of 1m11.841s with 22 minutes remaining. This put him 0.194s ahead of Verstappen, although the Dutchman would have posted a lap of 1m11.765s had he strung his three best sector times together. Sebastian Vettel was third fastest for Ferrari with a time 0.378s off the pace set on his eighth lap using a set of hypersofts.
That put him just over a tenth ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who shaded the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen by 0.009s despite a big slide coming through the second part of Swimming Pool. Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas was sixth, 0.099s slower than Kimi, although he was set to post an improved time when he aborted a lap on his performance run and headed into the pits.
Every driver set their fastest lap using hypersoft Pirellis.
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