Lewis Hamilton ended Friday in Monaco exactly where Ferrari will want him: on top of the timesheets and looking increasingly comfortable threading the SF-26 through the place’s narrow, unforgiving margins.
Hamilton’s 1m13.026s in second practice was the benchmark of the day, enough to keep Charles Leclerc at arm’s length as the home driver finished 0.066s back. It also left Max Verstappen third, with Ferrari’s pace on a street circuit that prizes confidence and front-end bite now looking like more than a nice Friday headline.
FP2 started in the familiar Monaco way: a queue of cars on mediums, everyone searching for rhythm first and lap time second. Grip was patchy, the rear axle especially skittish, and the walls were being “used” as reference points in the manner only Monaco encourages. Isack Hadjar was a notable absentee early on, delayed as Red Bull repaired damage from his earlier brush at the Swimming Pool.
Once the running settled, Ferrari again looked the sharpest. Hamilton struck first, then Leclerc answered — only for the order to be shuffled when Verstappen found a 1m14.008s after 10 minutes to briefly take control. The lead didn’t last long. Hamilton was already on a flyer and, despite bleeding time in the final sector, still went 0.279s quicker almost immediately.
It wasn’t a neat lap, but it was an instructive one: the Ferrari moving around underneath him through the Swimming Pool entry and exit, Hamilton leaning on it anyway, and the stopwatch rewarding the commitment. On a track where the car has to feel like an extension of your wrists, it looked like a driver beginning to trust what he’s been given.
The session’s first major interruption came courtesy of Lando Norris, who stopped at the Nouvelle Chicane run-off with just over 10 minutes gone and climbed out. Under a Virtual Safety Car, marshals struggled to clear the McLaren — it appeared stuck in gear, with the stoppage carrying the feel of an electrical or battery-related issue. Either way, it knocked a dent in his programme on a day where teams are trying to stitch together clean sequences before Saturday’s all-important qualifying.
When the circuit went green again, Leclerc produced a 1m13.613s to move back ahead, even with a scruffy moment at the Nouvelle Chicane that saw him clout the apex kerb. That little exchange between the Ferrari pair did more than decorate a timing sheet: it underlined that the car has pace even when the lap isn’t perfectly assembled — and around Monaco, that matters.
As the track rubbered in and teams switched into qualifying simulations on softs, the times predictably tumbled. Verstappen fired in a 1m13.467s to return to P1, a lap that was notably less than a tenth quicker than Hamilton’s earlier medium-tyre effort — a small detail, but one that hinted at how strong Ferrari already was before the headline runs began.
Hamilton then bolted on the red-walled tyre and, with a cleaner hook-up, took the session away: 1m13.026s, P1 again. Leclerc didn’t quite find the extra to respond.
Behind the leading trio, it was a typically messy Monaco practice: drivers flirting with the barrier as the cars continued to slide more than anyone would like. Franco Colapinto brushed the wall at Ste Devote, prompting Alpine to check the car, while Oscar Piastri also kissed the barrier in among a wider collection of light taps and near-misses.
Piastri’s ultimate position left him in the lower half of the top 10, in and around a pair of Audis that looked, on this evidence, to be lively midfield contenders on the tighter stuff. Mercedes, meanwhile, had a clearer internal pecking order on the day: George Russell was fourth and a touch over a tenth ahead of Kimi Antonelli in fifth, though both were still close to four tenths off Hamilton’s best.
The final word in FP2, though, belonged to the red flags. Sergio Perez’s Cadillac rolled to a stop at Casino Square late on with a brake problem that quickly escalated into a front-right fire. It brought out the third red flag of the day and effectively ended meaningful running; by the time the session resumed, only two minutes remained — enough for practice starts, not enough to change the story.
That story, for now, is that Ferrari has started Monaco with intent and with credibility. Friday pace doesn’t hand out trophies in the Principality, but it does buy something valuable here: belief. Hamilton has it, Leclerc looks right in it, and Verstappen is close enough to keep everyone honest. Saturday will decide whether this was a promising rehearsal — or the first act of a proper weekend.
