By Mark Gero
With the new cars out this season, Lewis Hamilton has turned his career around following a disastrous time in his first year at Ferrari. But on Friday practice for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Monaco, the seven-time world champion found his rhythm, clocking the quickest time with a 1:13:026 ahead of his teammate Charles Leclerc. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took third.
Both Hamilton and Leclerc, who is driving on his home circuit, have dominated the entire weekend so far, as the Monegasque opened the day with the best time, only for Hamilton to surpass it later in the afternoon.
The two Mercedes, who have dominated the entire season, finished behind the three, with George Russell in fourth, and his teammate and series leader Kimi Antonelli in fifth.
Isack Hadjar, who suffered an accident in the opening session at the Piscine, had his car fixed at the beginning of practice two, and appeared halfway with a half an hour left, continuing to improve his time enough to finish in sixth.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri took seventh in front of the two Audi’s, who had a great day as Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Borteleto finished eighth and ninth, with the Haas of Oliver Bearman in tenth.
While Piastri finished in the top ten, teammate and defending world champion Lando Norris suffered a power unit failure with 46 minutes left in the session, bringing out a virtual safety car as the Briton pulled his car off at the Nouvelle Chicane. The other retirement of the day Came with just minutes to go in the session when the Cadillac of Sergio Perez had an brake fire, bringing out the red flag momentarily until the grid could resume the session with two minutes left.
Qualifying will be on Saturday, and this race will be very important as track position is important on a circuit that is difficult to overtake.
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