Both training sessions on Thursday in Monaco were shortened to one hour each in 2021, instead of the usual 90 minutes each.
FP1 was led by Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Leclerc was the fastest in FP2 – he led a Ferrari 1-2.
What happened in Free Practice 1?
Carlos Sainz set the early pace for Ferrari at 1: 14.457 seconds on medium tires and lowered it to 1: 13.639 minutes and 1: 13.388 minutes when the track became rubberized. Sainz’s run this session was doubly important as Ferrari lost to Leclerc after a few laps with a gearbox failure.
In contrast to most teams, Red Bull first assessed the hard tires. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen had a flight lap that was ruined in the swimming pool by Haas’ Nikita Mazepin. Verstappen was fourth early behind Sainz and the Mercedes duo.
After he had worked his way out of the traffic, Verstappen jumped to first place after 28 minutes – despite the use of the hard tire – but was surpassed by Valtteri Bottas shortly after half-time with a lap of 1: 13.131 minutes. Lewis Hamilton then beat that with 1: 12.995 seconds – both Mercs used the media.
Sainz returned to the front with 1: 12.965 minutes and 25 minutes to go before Pierre Gasly took the lead with 1: 12.929 minutes when AlphaTauri drove early on soft tires. Sainz then hit the wall at the exit of the swimming pool and sent the only Ferrari into the garage.
Also read:
Verstappen finished first with a lap of 1: 12.648 minutes, a tenth ahead of Perez, who used softs. On his second attempt on the softs, Perez finished first in 1: 12.536 seconds and Sainz’s repaired car returned to second, the fastest of the middle users, 0.07 seconds behind.
In the final seconds of the session, Perez improved his fastest time to 1: 12.487 minutes.
Verstappen finished third, within two tenths of Perez, ahead of Gasly (soft bet), Hamilton, Bottas and Lando Norris, all in McLaren’s sleek new Gulf Oils livery. Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin), Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) and Kimi Räikkönen from Alfa Romeo.
Fernando Alonso hit the wall at the last corner and damaged the front wing of his Alpen. Elsewhere, Raikkonen imprisoned Sainte Devote, which the Alonso did 20 minutes before the end.
Also read:
What happened in Free Practice 2?
In RP2, Verstappen set the early pace to 1: 13.499 minutes with medium tires. Hamilton had to abandon his first flight lap after cutting the harbor chicane, but Verstappen’s time was the thousandth of a second on his second attempt – also using media.
Verstappen then set 1: 13.241 minutes, but hit traffic at the end of his lap when Hamilton produced 1: 12.772 minutes to overtake Verstappen by almost half a second. Hamilton improved to 1: 12.569 seconds, Verstappen to 0.232 seconds. Sainz then split them up and drove to P2 with 1: 12.749 seconds on the hard tire before Bottas threw him back to third place.
Bottas and Hamilton switched to the soft tires shortly before half-time, Bottas set 1: 12.107 and Hamilton to 1: 12.280 seconds after a few big slides. Sainz, who now uses the Soft, beat them all with 1: 11.796 minutes, with Hamilton and Verstappen not coming within a quarter of a second.
Also read:
Despite missing out on most of FP1, Leclerc jumped to first place 18 minutes from time and released 1: 11.684 seconds to beat his teammate by 0.112 seconds to make it a Ferrari 1-2. Hamilton was third ahead of Verstappen and Bottas. Norris, Gasly, Perez, Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) and Vettel rounded off the top 10.
Mick Schumacher from Haas F1 hit the wall in Massenet and had to stop before pitting again because of the damage to his right back corner. The session was highlighted in red with less than five minutes remaining.
