Leclerc tops disrupted FP2 after two red flags

Charles Leclerc has made it a clean sweep of Friday’s F1 Monaco Grand Prix practice by heading Oscar Piastri in the second session.

Last year’s Monaco GP victor Leclerc was just 0.038s quicker than McLaren’s championship leader Piastri, while Lewis Hamilton ensured both Ferraris featured in the top three.

Piastri and then team-mate Lando Norris led the early running in the second one-hour session, before Max Verstappen took over. But less than 10 minutes into the session the red flag came out a first time for Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar clipping the barriers at the Nouvelle Chicane.

Hadjar punctured his left rear tyre, with the Frenchman fuming behind the wheel but eventually able to bring the VCARB 02 back to the pits under the red flag.

As the session went green again Piastri led the way, but after 19 minutes the Australian caused a second stoppage by going straight into the tyre wall at Turn 1’s Ste Devote, escaping with minor damage.

As the track went green once more Leclerc, Aston’s Fernando Alonso and Hamilton all traded the lead on hard Pirelli rubber before the soft-tyre qualifying simulations started coming in.

It was last year’s home winner Leclerc who upped the pace, at one point holding the session’s three fastest lap times as he whittled his best effort down from 1m11.414s to 1m11.355s around the halfway mark.

Leclerc’s lap would survive until the end, with Piastri his closest challenger after brief repairs at McLaren. Piastri finished just 0.038s behind, with Hamilton one tenth behind his Ferrari team-mate in third.

Norris was fourth, three tenths in arrears, ahead of a surprise Racing Bulls duo of Liam Lawson and Hadjar, who recovered well from his early off but then tapped the wall again – this time sliding out of Turn 1 – and bent his left-rear suspension.

Alonso was seventh after a solid showing for Aston Martin, with Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Red Bull world champion Verstappen rounding out the top 10.

Verstappen narrowly headed team-mate Yuki Tsunoda after a typically low-key Friday for Red Bull, with the Dutchman going long in Ste Devote without harm. Verstappen was much more upset at the slow traffic around the swimming pool section, labelling it “so dangerous”.

Haas driver Oliver Bearman was summoned by the FIA race stewards for allegedly not complying with the second red flag.

The Monaco GP weekend resumes on Saturday with third practice at 12:30 local time, before Monaco’s crucial qualifying session at 16:00 local time.

F1 Monaco GP – FP2 results