MONACO GP – Charles Leclerc continues to set the pace in FP2 going four thousandths faster than teammate Carlos Sainz
Charles Leclerc continued to the pace in the second practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix. The Ferrari driver set a 12.656 on the soft tyre improving his own fastest time by a tenth, to put himself four-thousandths of a second faster than his teammate Carlos Sainz.
Leclerc’s lap time was almost two tenths faster than his FP1 topping time as he proved to be more settled around the streets of Monte Carlo. He set his fastest time on the soft tyre moving ahead of the Spaniard after only used the medium tyres in the first session. The team took a different run plan to Red Bull, which meant Sergio Perez was the early leader.
The Mexican however once the Ferrari’s switched to the softs found himself pushed to third, almost four-tenths behind Leclerc and ahead of teammate Max Verstappen by over half a second. Ferrari look to have the early lead going into Saturday but Monte Carlo is a circuit where anything can happen.
Ferrari’s pace, with both cars at the front, and more than three tenths back to the Red Bulls underlines their status as pre-race favourites, on a weekend Leclerc needs to beat Verstappen having seen the Dutchman turn a 46-point deficit into a six-point lead in three races.
Lando Norris put his McLaren fifth, the team looking to be competitive this weekend, he avoided the barriers at Ste Devote halfway through the session after a big slide through Anthony Noghes, where he had to dive down the escape road. He was a tenth faster than George Russell, the Mercedes driver also having a small contact with the wall at Tabac.
Russell also complained during his long run about a lack of power, but that was after the drivers had completed the performance runs. The Englishman ended the session over a tenth faster than Pierre Gasly’s Alpha Tauri. Mercedes had appeared optimistic following Barcelona in the press conference Russell said they had turned the corner.
However, on track they appeared to get the return of the porpoising which had affected them all season until last weekend, which left Russell three-quarters off Leclerc in seventh while Lewis Hamilton was over a second behind his teammate in twelfth.
Gasly was over three tenths faster than Fernando Alonso, Alpine not managing to look as competitive as they did on the streets of Jeddah and Miami. Yuki Tsunoda put his Alpha Tauri tenth, he was a tenth and a half behind the Spaniard and seven hundredths behind Sebastian Vettel.
Hamilton’s best time was over second and a half off Leclerc, but the seven time champion heavily flat-spotted his tyres on his quali sim, he did the same thing on his next run with a double lock up at Mirabeau Haute, causing him to go straight on down the escape road.
Valtteri Bottas was thirteenth after the Alfa Romeo driver missed most of FP1 with a throttle issue. The Finn was almost three hundredths faster than the Williams of Alex Albon, who spilt the two Alfa’s after he went four hundredths faster than Guanyu Zhou. Lance Stroll was sixteenth the Aston Martin over a quarter of a second behind.
After losing most of FP1 Mick Schumacher was seventeen, going two hundredths ahead of Esteban Ocon and Nicolas Latifi. Daniel Ricciardo was the only driver not to set a time after he crashed the McLaren a quarter of the way into the session exiting the Swimming Pool bringing out the red flag