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Leclerc leads Ferrari one-two as Ricciardo crashes in second practice

2022 Monaco Grand Prix second practice

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Charles Leclerc enjoyed the perfect start to his Monaco Grand Prix weekend by setting the fastest time in both practice sessions.

Having already headed the first session of the day, Leclerc stayed on top at the end of the second hour of running, ahead of his team mate. Leclerc’s best time of a 1’12.656 put him just 0.044 seconds ahead of Ferrari team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr.

Daniel Ricciardo crashed early in the session at the Swimming Pool, causing heavy damage to his McLaren and ending his evening’s running.

It was a beautiful, clear late afternoon in Monte Carlo as the cars ventured back out onto the circuit for the second practice session of the day. Track temperatures were almost identical to those the teams had enjoyed during the opening hour, but slowly dropped over the course of the session.

The majority of the field headed out on the medium tyres, except for the Ferraris of Leclerc and Sainz, who both opted for the hard tyres. Zhou Guanyu had a slight delay in leaving the garage, his Alfa Romeo team still working on preparing his car.

Sergio Perez set the early pace with a 1’14.001 on the medium tyres, ahead of team mate Max Verstappen and Lando Norris in the McLaren. Leclerc went second-quickest, with Pierre Gasly jumping to third in the AlphaTauri.

Around a quarter of an hour into the session, running was interrupted by red flag when Daniel Ricciardo lost control of his McLaren on the way into the Swimming Pool and hit the outside barriers, before slamming into the TecPro barriers at the second part of the corner. Ricciardo was unharmed and able to walk back to the McLaren garage and the session was suspended temporarily while his car was cleared.

Once the session resumed, many teams chose to work out the soft tyres around the twisty street circuit. Leclerc used the red-walled compound to go quickest of all, but was beaten by Verstappen by less than a tenth. Leclerc improved soon after to retake the top spot with a 1’12.656, before Sainz went second, fractionally slower than his team mate.

Multiple drivers had close encounters with the barriers around the circuit during the session. Norris had to abandon one of his runs after clipping the wall on the way into Anthony Noghes and damaging his front wing endplate. George Russell also scuffed his right-front wheel against the barriers, but the damage was purely superficial.

Despite some late runs on the soft tyres for Leclerc, Sainz and Verstappen, none of the front running drivers improved on their quickest single lap times for the session. When the chequered flag flew, Leclerc was on top for the second time on the day.

Perez was third in the Red Bull, three-tenths behind Leclerc, with Verstappen fourth fastest just over half a tenth behind. Norris recovered from a late mistake at Sainte Devote to finish the session fifth, ahead of Russell and Gasly. Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and Yuki Tsunoda completed the top ten, but with Tsunoda under investigation by the stewards for allegedly impeding Kevin Magnussen.

2022 Monaco Grand Prix second practice result

PositionNumberDriverTeamModelTimeGapLaps
116Charles LeclercFerrariF1-751’12.65630
255Carlos Sainz JnrFerrariF1-751’12.7000.04432
311Sergio PerezRed BullRB181’13.0350.37931
41Max VerstappenRed BullRB181’13.1030.44733
54Lando NorrisMcLaren-MercedesMCL361’13.2940.63824
663George RussellMercedesW131’13.4060.75031
710Pierre GaslyAlphaTauri-Red BullAT031’13.6360.98032
814Fernando AlonsoAlpine-RenaultA5221’13.9121.25631
95Sebastian VettelAston Martin-MercedesAMR221’14.0591.40331
1022Yuki TsunodaAlphaTauri-Red BullAT031’14.1341.47827
1120Kevin MagnussenHaas-FerrariVF-221’14.2391.58331
1244Lewis HamiltonMercedesW131’14.2671.61129
1377Valtteri BottasAlfa Romeo-FerrariC421’14.4681.81228
1423Alexander AlbonWilliams-MercedesFW441’14.4861.83033
1524Zhou GuanyuAlfa Romeo-FerrariC421’14.5251.86922
1618Lance StrollAston Martin-MercedesAMR221’14.6231.96729
1747Mick SchumacherHaas-FerrariVF-221’14.8942.23832
1831Esteban OconAlpine-RenaultA5221’15.2162.56033
196Nicholas LatifiWilliams-MercedesFW441’16.2763.62033
203Daniel RicciardoMcLaren-MercedesMCL36No time2

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2022 Monaco Grand Prix

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Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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4 comments on “Leclerc leads Ferrari one-two as Ricciardo crashes in second practice”

  1. They will need to keep it clean here. I don’t trust any clean sessions in qualifying after what we have had so far this season.

  2. Angry Perez is a fast Perez ;)

    1. Looks like that indeed, although he didn’t complain too much over the issue.

  3. Jockey Ewing
    27th May 2022, 20:24

    Interestingly, Max is beaten by Perez at free practices at this season multiple times. Maybe he is learning from uncle Schumacher? As it may sound nasty, it is maybe not that nasty, as it has some truth behind it. I mean, Michael Schumacher often not topped the timetables at FPs, not even in a dominant car, so approached the limit from below, in a careful, clever manner. The “uncle” expression is somewhat true as well, according to many articles, Max remembers MSC as an uncle-like person, their families spent a lot of time together when Max and Mick were a little child.

    So I wonder if the current season’s car is this more comforatable for Perez, or Verstappen just became more patient. Well, we have seen some debatable moves from him at the last season, and some moves what reflected on very high racing intelligence, at exploiting the not so thin book of rules, for example at last season’s Mexico GP when they pitted Bottas to take the fastest lap, and Verstappen deliberately slowed a lot to make Bottas catching up on him to hold him off a bit, to deny the fastest lap attempt (without being asked for it by the race engineer). So imo it can not really be said, that he is lacking on ideas, or mental capacity while driving.

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