The Monaco Grand Prix is Formula 1’s blue ribbon event. It breaks with convention in many areas, one of which being that the opening practice sessions of the weekend take place on Thursday rather than Friday.
Mercedes and Ferrari are probably glad that they have an extra day to mull over their practice data – Red Bull appears to be the dominant force around Monaco’s streets this year. Both pursuing teams have plenty of ground to make up before qualifying and the race.
Daniel Ricciardo topped both practice timesheets on Thursday, recording a track record 1m11.841s in FP2. Team-mate Max Verstappen was 0.194 seconds behind.
The team’s closest challenger was Sebastian Vettel, albeit over half a second behind Ricciardo’s benchmark. Lewis Hamilton was fourth, 0.695s behind Ricciardo, with Mercedes’ race pace paint an even bleaker picture for the reigning champions.
Here are five things we learned on Thursday in Monaco.
Red Bull’s throwback Thursday
Red Bull has made a habit of flattering to deceive during the opening day of practice at grand prixs this season. Often the team has looked set to be the class of a field in race trim, only for that pace to disappear as the weekend progresses. However, it seems that Red Bull’s Monaco performance is genuine.
The characteristics of the circuit suits the RB14. The keys in Monaco are delivering good traction and utilising mechanical grip which the Red Bulls seemingly has in abundance.
At previous venues, Ferrari and Mercedes have turned the power unit up on a Saturday and blown Red Bull back to the third row in emphatic fashion. Without doubt, those two teams have more performance up their sleeves in that respect, but extra power counts for very little at the Principality – it certainly won’t be enough to reverse what is currently over half a second of deficit.
Not since 2013 has Red Bull enjoyed such a convincingly strong set of opening practice sessions. Qualifying is likely to produce the team’s first front row lock-out since the ‘13 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Mercedes is the third fastest team
Mercedes may have corrected some of the ailments which have made racing on street circuits such as Monaco and Singapore so challenging for them in recent years, but it would seem that 2018’s compact competitive order has left them exposed this weekend.
Mercedes is the third fastest team in Monaco, on both short and long runs. Most concerning of all for the Silver Arrows is that both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas appeared to be around a second per lap adrift of the Red Bulls during the race runs.
The team will, of course, make progress in the build-up to the business end of the weekend, but it seems that hopes of victory will be in the hands of Lady Luck rather than Mercedes’ own.
McLaren and Renault leading titanic midfield fight
With just half a second per lap separating the seven teams outside of F1’s leading group on the long run evaluations, best of the rest status will be hotly contested this weekend. Renault and McLaren are, however, the early favourites for the accolade.
The two teams appeared evenly matched during the qualifying simulations, with Nico Hulkenberg’s 1m13.047s edging Stoffel Vandoorne’s McLaren benchmark by 0.03s.
McLaren may have an ace card still to play, with Fernando Alonso no doubt still adapting to the demands of Monaco in F1’s modern machinery. It is important to remember that Thursday was Alonso’s first day driving the current regulation cars around Monaco having missed last year’s race on account of his Indy 500 adventure.
Force India has work to do
Monaco may have been the scene of a podium for Force India’s Sergio Perez in 2016, but even scoring points at this year’s race could prove challenging.
Perez ended up 12th in FP2, while team-mate Esteban Ocon was 13th. The team’s race pace was more of a concern, with Ocon averaging 1m16.980s on the hypersoft tyre – faster than Perez’s pace but leaving Force India as the slowest team during Thursday’s long run evaluation.
With overtaking notoriously challenging, race pace is unusually unimportant compared to qualifying pace, but Force India’s lack of long run speed could leave Perez and Ocon exposed to under and overcuts when the pit window opens.
Delta between ultra and hyper is super (large)
It is highly unlikely that any of the frontrunners will opt to set a Q2 time on the harder ultrasoft compound. The hypersoft tyre makes its debut this weekend and Pirelli’s newest creation is around one second per lap faster than the one-step harder ultrasoft compound.
With Renault and McLaren less than a second behind Ferrari and Mercedes, those teams would be unable to progress through Q3 with a comfortable enough margin on the harder rubber.
Red Bull would be the only team fast enough to attempt to use the tyre on Saturday afternoon, but with neither Ferrari nor Mercedes being able to attempt it, Ricciardo and Verstappen would have no rival alternate strategy to counteract. Expect to see hypersofts used throughout qualifying.