Leclerc leads Sainz in Ferrari 1-2 in Monaco second practice

Charles Leclerc headed a surprise Ferrari 1-2 as he and teammate Carlos Sainz hit the front in second practice for the 2021 Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix.
Leclerc leads Sainz in Ferrari 1-2 in Monaco second practice

Leclerc missed the majority of FP1 after suffering a gearbox failure but recovered well from his early weekend setback to produce the benchmark time in the afternoon session for Ferrari.

The Monegasque driver, who has never finished an F1 race at his home race, topped the timesheets with a best effort of a 1m11.684s to edge out Sainz by 0.112s.

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Behind the pace-setting Ferraris came Lewis Hamilton, who ended up nearly four-tenths adrift in his Mercedes but was just 0.007s quicker than title rival Max Verstappen.

The second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas completed the top five ahead of Lando Norris’ McLaren, AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and Sergio Perez’s Red Bull.

Antonio Giovinazzi and Sebastian Vettel - who reported his eye was bleeding during the session - rounded out the top-10 order for Alfa Romeo and Aston Martin.

FP2 was red-flagged a few minutes from the end when Mick Schumacher came to a halt in his Haas after drifting into the wall at Massenet and picking up a right rear puncture.

F1 rookie Yuki Tsunoda also had a costly brush with the Monte Carlo barriers that forced him to miss the final 30 minutes of the session and left him anchored to the bottom of the timesheets.

It was a disappointing afternoon for Alpine as both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon finished outside of the top 10, while Daniel Ricciardo failed to show his one-lap potential for McLaren as he took a lowly 15th.

Click here for full results from second practice at the Monaco Grand Prix.

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