Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc made the perfect start at his home race by topping the P1 standings for the Maranello team, but as usual Red Bull were right behind the Italian side, with the battle between Charles Leclerc and world championship leader Max Verstappen looking likely to continue throughout the weekend on the streets of Monte Carlo.
One more hour of practice on Friday and both Ferrari and Red Bull cars were out straight away. We had not seen much soft-tyre running today, but we did so in this FP2.
Carlos Sainz momentarily topped the standings, but Sergio Perez came through with the quickest time of the day to take over It was a 1:14.001 from the Mexican. His Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen followed up with a time that was 0.25s slower to go second. Sebastian Vettel was very lucky to not go into the wall as he lost some tyre control on a flying lap, doing well to recover and avoid any major damage. Unlike Daniel Ricciardo, who moments later went off at the swimming pool chicane! It was only a matter of time before someone hit the barriers in Monaco. We’d had about 15 minutes of action before Ricciardo’s crash brought out a red flag.
Once the session resumed, soft tyres went on for drivers and some fast times were set: first Fernando Alonso went fastest, then Sergio Perez reclaimed the lead, by half a second too. Charles Leclerc got Ferrari back to the top of the timesheet with a 1:13.125, a couple of tenths clear of both Red Bull cars. Max Verstappen stayed out for another lap and not only leapfrogged his team-mate, but also Charles Leclerc. The Ferrari driver, however, hits back immediately and whips out a 1:12.7, three-tenths faster than Max. The hometown boy the did a 1:12.656 to extend his advantage over his Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz to 0.4s. The Spanish driver gradually also improved and the gap between the two Ferrari drivers was down to just 0.044s!
Drivers were not thinking about long runs too much in this second practice session and that was to be expected in Monaco, where qualifying and track position is of course key.
Drivers did spend the last quarter of the session focusing on race pace, with lap times around three seconds slower than we saw earlier. Ferrari continued to have the best average pace, and certainly looks to be the car to beat this weekend: Charles finished just FP2 fastest, just ahead of his Maranello teammate in a very encouraging practice session for Ferrari.
Practice Two: Top Ten
1) Charles Leclerc, 1:12.656
2) Carlos Sainz, +0.044
3) Sergio Perez, +0.379
4) Max Verstappen, +0.447
5) Lando Norris, +0.638
6) George Russell, +0.750
7) Pierre Gasly, +0.980
8) Fernando Alonso, +1.256
9) Sebastian Vettel, +1.403
10) Yuki Tsunoda, +1.478
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