Max Verstappen beat Charles Leclerc to top spot at the end of Friday practice at the Monaco Grand Prix, but this isn’t business as usual.
Rather than Verstappen holding his regular large advantage over the field, the Dutchman was just 0.065 seconds quicker than the Monegasque.
With Carlos Sainz around 0.1 seconds off the pace and Fernando Alonso only 0.2 seconds adrift, hopes that the battle for pole — and therefore the battle for victory — would be unusually close around the peculiar Monte Carlo street circuit appear to be being realised.
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Red Bull Racing, though fastest by the end of the day, looks vulnerable.
“Compared to Ferrari especially we‘re still a bit lacking on the general ride of the car, how it handles the kerbs, the bumps, the drops in camber,” Verstappen said. “That’s still something we need to work on for tomorrow, because you can see they are very, very close.
“Once you go to the limit in qualifying we need a bit more to stay ahead of them.”
Sergio Pérez, the so-called king of street circuits and last year’s Monaco winner, hinted that the RB19’s predicted weakness warming up the tyres would be key come qualifying.
“Getting on top of the tyres and making sure we get the tyres in the right window at the right time [will make the difference],” he said.
“It‘s going to be a real challenge heading into qualifying, so it’s going to be an interesting session.”
What’s most enticing about the times set on Friday is that the top three cars appear sufficiently closely matched that differences are going to come from the drivers rather than the machines come qualifying.
Snatching pole is going to require a perfect balance between risk and reward.
There’s no better hour of action than qualifying in Monte Carlo, and this year’s session is shaping up to be a particularly exciting one.
SAINZ IN THE ASCENDANCY ON LECLERC’S HOME TRACK
Ordinarily we consider race pace at this stage of the weekend, but given the primacy of qualifying in Monte Carlo, it’s much more instructive to consider the theoretical best lap time of the drivers.
To calculate the theoretical best laps, we take the best individual sectors set by each drivers and combine them to form a complete tour of the circuit.
What we get is an extremely close picture between Ferrari, Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing at the front, with Carlos Sainz leading the way.
Best sectors by driver
1. Carlos Sainz: 1 minute 12.406 seconds
2. Fernando Alonso: +0.020 seconds
3. Max Verstappen: +0.056 seconds
4. Charles Leclerc: +0.121 seconds
5. Lewis Hamilton: +0.445 seconds
6. Lando Norris: +0.461 seconds
7. George Russell: +0.525 seconds
8. Sergio Pérez: +0.541 seconds
9. Valtteri Bottas: +0.644 seconds
10. Pierre Gasly: +0.683 seconds
11. Esteban Ocon: +0.743 seconds
12. Lance Stroll: +0.751 seconds
13. Kevin Magnussen: +0.831 seconds
14. Zhou Guanyu: +0.935 seconds
15. Yuki Tsunoda: +0.952 seconds
16. Nyck de Vries: +1.045 seconds
17. Nico Hülkenberg: +1.114 seconds
18. Oscar Piastri: +1.185 seconds
19. Alex Albon: +1.790 seconds
20. Logan Sargeant: +1.827 seconds
Sainz was the in-form driver of the day, certainly at Ferrari. He was rapid in first practice and within touching distance of top spot in FP2 as well — and as the best sector times show, he had the potential to lead the way on Friday afternoon if he could string it all together.
He ended the final practice session in the barriers after snapping his suspension exiting Swimming Pool, but the Spaniard was nonetheless buoyant in the aftermath that he could be on for a good weekend.
“It was a very small crash, to be honest,” he said. I just clipped the wall on the inside of [Turn] 16, typical Monaco miscalculation.
“In terms of confidence and in terms of lap time, I’ve been on it the whole day; just a small miscalculation in one corner is not going to affect it.
“I think we’re on the right track to at least challenge for [pole].”
Leclerc, whose run of bad luck at his home track is legendary, said that he his car was “not doing exactly what it is supposed to do” around his home streets, suggesting he lacked feeling to push to the limit.
Leclerc is arguably the fastest driver in the sport and has shown himself capable of great feats in Monte Carlo. He can’t be discounted to fire back at his teammate if overnight changes bring the SF-23 back into his orbit.
ASTON MARTIN STILL IN THE HUNT
While Red Bull Racing and Ferrari were in an obvious battle for fastest lap in FP2, Aston Martin remained a dark horse. Fernando Alonso was never far off the pace, but nor did he ever look quite capable of landing a killer blow.
In FP2 the AMR23 cost itself almost all its deficit in the hairpin, the car roughly on the pace elsewhere around the lap.
It was enough to give Alonso hope that a clean run might be enough to bridge the gap and put him in pole contention.
“The car felt good, easy to drive, which is what you would expect in this kind of circuit, so I’m happy,” he said.
“I came with a lot of confidence already because this car gave me positive things all throughout the year, so it didn’t disappoint today; it was enjoyable to drive, I had fun and I’m ready for [qualifying].”
“Let’s see. I think [Saturday] everything is in play, but we should be one of the candidates.”
The summation of his best sector times certainly suggests that the fight is within reach, though sometimes a single clean lap is easier said than done in Monaco.
Alonso, for example, complained several times about traffic throughout practice, and track placement around slow car will always play a strategic role in Monte Carlo qualifying.
MERCEDES UPGRADES BREAK COVER, BUT DON’T JUDGE THEM IN MONACO
Mercedes’s long-awaited upgrade arrived in six big parts: front suspension, floor fences, sidepod inlet, engine cover, rear wing and rear-corner winglets.
The aero changes were already in the works before the start of the season, while work started on the new suspension once the car’s deficiencies became clear once the campaign got going.
Mercedes has been cautious to keep expectations in check for this round, noting that Monaco is too extreme an outlier to be a good reference point for general development, but Lewis Hamilton in a notably upbeat mood on Friday night.
“I really enjoyed driving today,” he said. “It’s not the place to ultimately test an upgrade, but the car was generally feeling good.”
Hamilton ended the day sixth and a touch off half a second down on Verstappen’s headline time, but both he and teammate George Russell spent the day experimenting with set-up, and both their fastest laps were set in low engine modes.
But that isn’t enough to assume the gap is being artificially inflated. Everyone runs lower engine modes and heavy fuel during practice, and it’s difficult to escape the fact that this is roughly the distance Mercedes has been to the leaders all year.
Despite saying he hoped he’d find overnight improvements, Hamilton stopped short of predicting a pole battle.
“In this session we were close to half a second off,” he said. “Maybe that could’ve been three tenths, but I don’t think we have half a second in the bag.
“Ultimately it was a bit of a shame we weren’t as close as I’d hoped at the end of the session, but I definitely felt the improvements, and we’ve just got to keep chipping away to see if we can squeeze any more juice out of the car.”
That doesn’t signal failure for these updates, however, given the peculiarities of the circuit.
“Monaco is such a unique track, so it’s not an ideal place to be evaluating updates,” George Russell said. “We’re just trying to focus on improving around this circuit.”
Whether or not the upgrades bring Mercedes into closer contact this weekend, introducing them here at least gives the team a rolling start for Spain next weekend, where there’ll be more to be gained.
