Ian Parkes
Friday 27 May 2022 17:00 – Updated: 17:13
Daniel Ricciardo’s week of McLaren misery continued as he suffered a heavy smash in a second practice session dominated by Charles Leclerc.
After failing to score in his fifth grand prix from six this season with 12th in Sunday’s race in Spain, and with CEO Zak Brown remarking the Australian had not met expectations since his arrival at the start of last season, Ricciardo added to his woes by slamming into a Monaco barrier.
Entering the swimming pool complex, Ricciardo’s MCL36 appeared to bottom out on entry, resulting in a severe snap of oversteer and into a wall at around 130mph.
As it was only Ricciardo’s second exploratory lap, the 32-year-old finished bottom of a timesheet spearheaded by Leclerc who is eager this weekend to atone for his own error in qualifying last year that wrecked a victory bid.
Leclerc, who was quickest in FP1 on the medium tyre, also finished quickest in FP2 when the softs were strapped onto the SF-75 for the first time, posting a lap of one minute 12,656s.
Teammate Carlos Sainz managed to finish just 0.044s adrift, while the rest were left trailing in the wake of the Scuderia, with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez almost four-tenths of a second adrift in third.
The Mexican had also finished ahead of champion team-mate Max Verstappen in FP1, with the Dutchman 0.068s behind on this occasion.
Lando Norris at least offered McLaren something to cheer as he was fifth quickest, 0.638s behind Leclerc, with fellow Briton George Russell a tenth further back in a Mercedes that team principal Toto Wolff had described as “undriveable” after FP1 given the violent nature of the returning bouncing that has so badly affected the W13 this season.
Little appeared to have altered in between the sessions as the car is running too stiff for this street track, leaving Lewis Hamilton in a lowly 12th, 1.611s down.
The seven-time champion flat-spotted his left-front tire early on and then found the run-off on entry into the hairpin later in the session, with the car clearly proving a handful.
In between the duo, AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly again looked strong, followed by the Alpine of Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel.
Gasly’s team-mate Yuki Tsunoda completed the top 10, 1.478s down, with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen also ahead of Hamilton in 11th.
Of those to set a time, Williams’ Nicholas Latifi brought up the rear in 19th, 3.620s back.
