Sebastian Vettel took his turn at the top of the leaderboard in the second free practice session at Monaco on Thursday, leaving the rest of the field for dead by almost half a second, the fastest time ever recorded in  Monaco..

After trailing Lewis Hamilton in the first free practice session, Sebastian put his head down and delivered a brilliant 1:12.7 lap around the streets of the Principality, the only driver to go under the 1:13 mark.

Last year's pole sitter, Daniel Ricciardo was second quickest and he too was  more than half a second quicker than the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen while the two Toro Rosso's, who only used the supersofts in the first session, were super quick on the ultra softs to round out the top five.

You have to look all the way down to P8 to find Lewis Hamilton and another two places further back for his teammate, Valtteri Bottas, after the team went in the ‘wrong direction' for the second session.

“After a very positive morning session with both cars and drivers, the afternoon proved more difficult and we clearly took a step in the wrong direction with the car set-up over the break,” explained Mercedes technical direction, James Allison. “We will have a good think about it tomorrow in order to put things right for Saturday. But I think we can be encouraged by the pace and consistency that we were able to demonstrate in FP1.”

Jolyon Palmer's woes this season continued with an engine failure in his Renault, but other than that it was a rather incident free day.

 

  1. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 1:12.720
    2. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, +0.487
    3. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, +0.563
    4. Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, +0.611
    5. Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso, +0.680
    6. Max Verstappen, Red Bull, +0.766
    7. Sergio Perez, Force India, +1.079
    8. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, +1.153
    9. Kevin Magnussen, Haas, +1.170
    10. Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, +1.182
    11. Stoffel Vandoorne, McLaren-Honda, +1.226
    12. Jenson Button, McLaren-Honda, +1.261
    13. Felipe Massa, Williams, +1.283
    14. Romain Grosjean, Haas, +1.302
    15. Esteban Ocon, Force India, +1.373
    16. Lance Stroll, Williams, +1.754
    17. Nico Hulkenberg, Renault, +2.150
    18. Jolyon Palmer, Renault, +2.896
    19. Marcus Ericsson, Sauber, +2.971
    20. Pascal Wehrlein, Sauber, +2.975