Yep, you read that right, Charles Leclerc led an unexpected Ferrari one-two in Practice 2 at the Monaco Grand Prix on Thursday.
The Monegasque, who managed just four laps in the morning due to a gearbox problem, found his rhythm on his home circuit posting a 1m11.684s to lead teammate Carlos Sainz by a tenth of a second.
Ferrari’s pace has been strong all day, at least with Sainz, and the three-tenths margin back to Lewis Hamilton in third suggested this wasn’t just the usual case of the Scuderia running a higher engine mode either.
At the same time, neither the world champion nor Max Verstappen in fourth appeared particularly happy with their cars as they struggled with traffic and a few scruffy corners during their flying laps.
Valtteri Bottas was fifth in the second Mercedes ahead of Lando Norris, as Pierre Gasly survived a bump against the barrier en route to seventh for AlphaTauri.
Traffic was the bain of Sergio Perez’s problems in eighth, while Alfa Romeo are looking solid with Antonio Giovinazzi ninth and Kimi Raikkonen 11th.
Sebastian Vettel struggled with something in his eye during his soft tyre run but still managed to claim 10th in the Aston Martin.
Alpine’s tricky day also continued with Fernando Alonso only 12th and Esteban Ocon 14th, Daniel Ricciardo was also still well off the pace of McLaren teammate Norris in 15th.
The two Williams were 16th and 17th, as Nikita Mazepin once again led Mick Schumacher at Haas, with the German causing a session-ending red flag after crashing at Massanet.
Yuki Tsunoda brought up the field In 20th.
A fascinating result which again likely tells far from the true picture as drivers struggled for clear laps throughout practice in Monte Carlo.
However, Ferrari certainly look like they could make it a three-team battle at the front this weekend, and that would be no bad thing!
