“The morning was spent conducting race preparation work,” he summarised, “whilst the second session was dedicated to set-up work and evaluating the tyres for qualifying. Neither driver had a particularly good run on the option tyre, which is brand new for this race. This is not surprising for a Thursday here as the track grip will continue to improve considerably, so we still expect the option to be a good tyre for qualifying and the race.

“We had a good test at Paul Ricard last week, and it appears that our relative performance is back to where we were at Barcelona. It is never wise to be over-confident at Monaco, though, as there are so many variables affecting the race outcome.

“From a performance point-of-view, we are hopeful of getting into the points on merit. There is a chance of rain on Saturday and Sunday, which at this track amounts to a big roll of the dice. We will be looking to take advantage of any opportunity to move further up the field.”