Ferrari dominated both practice sessions on Friday at the Monaco Grand Prix, the sixth round of the Formula 1 season. Charles Leclerc led FP1 in the first session, while Lewis Hamilton secured a 1-2 finish for Ferrari in the second; the team dominated the top positions in both sessions.
Ferrari finished 1-2 in both sessions.
Leclerc, competing in his home race, got off to a strong start. He finished FP1 in first place with a lap time of 1:13.978, two tenths of a second ahead of his teammate Hamilton; Max Verstappen was three tenths behind in third. Championship leader Kimi Antonelli was fourth, George Russell fifth, and Lando Norris sixth. The session was interrupted by accidents involving Isack, Hadjar, and Fernando Alonso.
In the second session, it was Hamilton's turn. Hamilton finished a FP2 session in the lead for the first time since the 2025 Azerbaijan GP; his time of 1:13.026 put him 0.111 seconds ahead of FP1 leader Leclerc. Verstappen was third, and Russell was fourth, ahead of his teammate Antonelli.
Norris's day ended early.
The picture was not encouraging for McLaren. Lando Norris's session ended prematurely with a problem (possibly a battery failure) before the 10-minute mark; his teammate Oscar Piastri, in the other McLaren, was more than a second behind the fastest time. Although Mercedes looked like a threat in the first part of the session with medium compound tires, this challenge weakened when they switched to the red wall soft tires.
Antonelli widened the gap in the championship.
Following the Canadian GP, the final race before Monaco, the standings are as follows: Kimi Antonelli reached 131 points with his fourth consecutive victory, leading by 43 points ahead of his teammate George Russell (88 points). Charles Leclerc retained his third place, while Lewis Hamilton, with his best result of the season, moved up to fourth place, just three points behind. Max Verstappen, who achieved his first podium in Canada, is in seventh place. In the constructors' championship, Mercedes leads, with Ferrari just two points behind; McLaren is in third place ahead of Red Bull, while Cadillac and Aston Martin have yet to score points. Interestingly, this is the first time since 1952 that an Italian has led both Formula 1 and MotoGP championships simultaneously (Antonelli and Bezzecchi).