Monaco Grand Prix – Max Verstappen was fastest ahead of Charles Leclerc in FP2 as Carlos Sainz, who’d been on the pace, crashed near the end of the session.
It was differing fortunes for the Williams drivers at the start of the second session, Logan Sargeant leading the way out of the pits when the light went green while his teammate, Alex Albon, was set to be a spectator for the start of FP2 as his car was still being repaired after his crash at the end of practice one damaged his gearbox, front left suspension and both his front and rear wings.
(FP2) Second Practice Results – 2023 Monaco Grand Prix
It was Nico Hulkenberg who put the first time on the board, a leisurely 1:24.024, while after the first five minutes it was George Russell, seeming to be more comfortable that he was in FP1, on top with a 1:15.482, 0.005 seconds ahead of Max Verstappen while Lewis Hamilton was two and a half tenths further back.
Verstappen was the first to get into the 1:13s this time, the Dutch driver with a 1:13.985 while Hamilton joined him with a 1:13.984 at the ten minute mark. The Red Bull driver regained the lead in short order going 0.127 seconds faster Lando Norris made his first on track appearance of the session after McLaren spent time working on his car.
With twenty minutes of the session completed, the track had quietened down with a lot of cars back in their garages and it was the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Sergio Perez at the top ahead of the two Ferraris. A few minutes later the Aston Martins were back out and on soft tyres and Fernando Alonso broke into the 1:12s on his first effort, setting a 1:12.786 to go over half a second quicker around the Principality than anyone else so far this weekend.
At the halfway point it was the same top two as FP1, Carlos Sainz taking the top spot with a 1:12.569, two tenths ahead of Alonso while Alpine’s Esteban Ocon was nearly four tenths further back in P3.
As Nico Hulkenberg has done in the opening session, Yuki Tsunoda clipped the barrier at the Nouvelle chicane, puncturing his rear left but that incident was overshadowed by Sainz, who clipped the barrier at the swimming pool but unlike the brush he got away with at the start of FP1, this time the barrier bit back, breaking his front right and sending him into the barrier at the exit. The Red Flag was called with 17 minutes to go.
Alonso led the cars back out when the session resumed with just less than 12 minutes on the clock. At that point Verstappen was in P1 with a 1:12.462, less than a tenth ahead of Charles Leclerc while Sainz had been sitting P3, just over a tenth off the Red Bull.
After a lot of repair work, Albon made his first on-track appearance of the session with 11 minutes to go. Around the same time Norris, who’d also spent the early part of the session in his garage, was told to abort his lap and head back to the pits where the team started looking at the rear of his car.
There weren’t any changes on the leaderboard in the final part of the session so Verstappen ended ahead of Leclerc and Sainz while Alonso ended in P4 with a 1:12.682. Norris was P5, 0.444 seconds off the reigning champion while Hamilton took P6 with a 1:12.960.
Perez ended the day’s running in P7 ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas while the Alpines of Pierre Gasly and Ocon rounded out the top ten, all of whom were within seven tenths of each other.
