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WHAT WE
LEARNED:
* Max Verstappen was the fastest on the first day of free practice in
Monaco. During the second session, the Red Bull driver set the best time of
1m12.462s on a new set of P Zero Red softs. Charles Leclerc, last year's
poleman, was six hundredths of a second slower, stopping the clock at
1m12.527s, marginally quicker than his teammate Carlos Sainz (1m12.569s).
The Spaniard led for much of FP2 but ended his day prematurely when he
crashed into the barriers in the Swimming Pool section with about 15 minutes
of the session remaining, causing a red flag.
* In addition to being fastest on the softs, Verstappen also set the best
time of the day using the medium (1m13.312s) while Sainz did so on the hard
(1m13.808).
* The tyres used today have shown to recover grip after a flying lap if
drivers are able to cool them down properly. During qualifying it should
therefore be possible to stay on the track longer, trying to make the most
of changing traffic conditions.
* With the session starting at 17:00, the asphalt was significantly cooler
in FP2, partly because the amount of the track that was in shade increased
as the sun went down. In fact, the temperature dropped from the high of
nearly 47°C reached during FP1 to a low of 39°C at the end of the day.
* During FP1 the teams tried the P Zero White hard and P Zero Yellow medium.
The best time on the latter compound was set by Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) with
a 1m13.372s, three tenths faster than Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin). Lewis
Hamilton (Mercedes) ended the session in third place with a 1m14.035s. FP1
was interrupted twice by red flags: the first with about 20 minutes to go
following an impact against the barriers at the Nouvelle chicane for Nico
Hulkenberg (Haas) which damaged his left-rear wheel rim, the other with
three minutes remaining because of an accident for Alex Albon (Williams) who
hit the guardrails at Sainte Devote, ending the session early.
Simone Berra: Chief Engineer:
“It is always a great spectacle to see Formula 1 cars hurtling around a
track as fascinating and unique as Monaco and today was yet another
confirmation of that. In terms of tyre behavior, we had no particular
surprises. All three compounds were used on a track that sped up
significantly from the beginning to the end of today's running. The
differences in performance between hard, medium and soft are quite in line
with the simulations and, in their evaluation, one must take into account
the relatively short length of this circuit and its evolution. Usually the
gaps here are small, but this year they seem to be even smaller, because in
the hybrid era we have never seen a gap of only seven tenths between the
first and tenth fastest drivers in FP2. It will therefore be even more
important to be on track at the right moment to be able to push hard and,
with this in mind, it is worth pointing out that today we saw that even the
softest compound allows for more than one fast lap if properly managed in
terms of grip recovery. It is a tyre characteristic that we introduced last
year and which has already been highlighted recently at other circuits, such
as Baku." |
