Until the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League, Charles Leclerc solidified his position as the favorite for pole position in the Monaco Grand Prix by leading the final practice session on his home streets. Leclerc topped the time sheets on his first set of softer tires, with a three-tenths of a second advantage over his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz. He further improved his time when he switched to his second set of tires, completing a lap in 1m11.369s with 15 minutes remaining, which remained the fastest time of the session. However, despite Sainz improving with new tires, he ended up 0.610s slower than Leclerc and was unable to improve on what could have been a faster lap due to traffic. This resulted in his seventh position, allowing Max Verstappen to secure second place.
Despite struggling with the handling of his Red Bull, Verstappen achieved a better lap time that was 0.197s slower than Leclerc’s fastest time. Verstappen set the fastest time in the first sector, but lost almost three tenths of a second to Leclerc in the long middle sector. Lewis Hamilton took advantage of a promising Friday for Mercedes by securing the third fastest time, trailing Leclerc by 0.341s. This put him two tenths ahead of Oscar Piastri, McLaren’s lead driver. Both Hamilton and Piastri had incidents where they ran wide at the Ste Devote corner during the session, but quickly recovered.
Sergio Perez, who expressed dissatisfaction with the car’s performance over the radio, and George Russell completed the top six. Lando Norris, driving for McLaren, finished in eighth place, just nine thousandths of a second slower than Sainz. Norris raised concerns about Russell’s slow approach to the chicane, leading to an investigation by the stewards. Fernando Alonso initially set competitive lap times, but ended up falling to 10th place, behind Yuki Tsunoda from Red Bull Racing. Pierre Gasly secured the 11th fastest time, followed by Alex Albon and Nico Hulkenberg. The Alpine, Williams, and Haas teams formed a closely matched group just outside the top 10. Sauber had a tough session, with Zhou Guanyu finishing in 19th place, 2.461s behind the leading time. Valtteri Bottas had issues early in the session, hitting the curbs at the chicane and scraping the wall, resulting in damage to the front right corner of his car. He eventually stopped at Rascasse, causing the red flag to be waved.
