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The battle of the chiefs will take place on Circuit de Monaco from 4 p.m. to see who will start from pole position on Sunday, at the 81st Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco. The 3rd free practice session saw Charles Leclerc, fastest in his Ferrari, confirm the very favourable impression already given on Friday. He will just have to be quicker than the last two world champions, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.
With a time of 1:11.369, the Monegasque, in search of a first podium finish in his homeland, did almost as well as he did in Friday’s 2nd session, just one tenth behind, and saw the inevitable Verstappen, who set the 2nd fastest time, just two tenths behind the Scuderia driver, come back into his rear-view mirror. This promises to be the case in qualifying, where a third driver, the veteran Hamilton (Mercedes), will be looking to get onto the front row, along with one or the other of his two young rivals.
Last year, in qualifying, the Red Bull driver took all the risks and set a time of 1:11.365 to take pole. This time has already been beaten on Friday by Leclerc, and there is no doubt that it will be beaten again later today. There could still be a surprise in store, as the top ten finishers in this 2nd session finished within 7 tenths of each other, between Leclerc and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), who set the 10th fastest time.
One thing is certain: the Ferraris have everything they need to continue their domination of the Monaco weekend, with perhaps a small margin of comfort over the Red Bulls, the Mercedes and the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, or even the Aston Martin of ‘Nando’, the two-time Spanish world champion.
Finally, one or two teams from the second half of the field could manage to qualify for Q3, the final act of “quali”, if the session is even more eventful than expected. In that case, we’ll have to keep an eye on Yuki Tsunoda’s Racing Bull, Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hülkenberg at Haas. After all, anything is always possible at Monaco, especially on Saturday…
