Until the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League, Charles Leclerc had established himself as the early favorite for the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, with the fastest time in the second practice session. Only Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes came close to Leclerc’s performance in the FP2 qualifying simulations. Leclerc ended the session with the fastest time of 1m11.278s, which is already faster than last year’s pole position time, leading by 0.188 seconds. However, it is important to note that Hamilton set his time later in the session, and Leclerc had actually gone faster in the first sector on a subsequent attempt before aborting the lap due to a mistake at Portier.
Leclerc set the tone from the start by completing a sequence of 11 laps on medium tires, recording the best time of 1m11.573s, which at that time put him almost a second ahead of Hamilton. When the field switched to soft tires, Fernando Alonso was the only other driver who initially got to within half a second of Leclerc’s time. Max Verstappen and Lando Norris closely followed in fourth and fifth places, respectively, with differences of 0.535s and 0.675s off Leclerc’s pace. These Red Bull and McLaren drivers were also considered contenders alongside Ferrari before the weekend.
During the final 20 minutes of the session, long runs were conducted, but they did not provide conclusive results. However, it seemed that Leclerc, Verstappen, Norris, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz were a step ahead of the others. Hamilton’s single lap pace did not translate as well in the long run simulations, but his Mercedes still seemed comfortably faster than Alonso’s Aston Martin.
It is important to note that long run pace is not a strong indicator of race order in Monaco. Due to the lack of overtaking opportunities on the tight street circuit, qualifying largely determines the race order. Sainz was slightly behind his teammate Leclerc in terms of single lap pace, while Verstappen, who initially complained about the handling of his car, seemed to have the edge over his Red Bull teammate, Sergio Perez.
During the session, several drivers brushed the barriers of the street circuit, including Verstappen. He finished eighth in FP2, behind Sainz and Lance Stroll of Aston Martin. Verstappen reported that the handling of his RB20 was “terrible” and that he couldn’t see the apex of Massenet as he approached the left turn at the top of the hill. The top 10 was completed by Alex Albon of Williams and George Russell of Mercedes.
Yuki Tsunoda, who showed impressive single lap pace in the practices at Imola, did not have a repeat performance in Monaco. However, Red Bull still seemed to be in good shape considering Tsunoda was the fastest among the five drivers who did not complete laps on soft tires. Tsunoda finished 11th, ahead of Piastri, and also appeared competitive in terms of long run pace.
