THURSDAY TYRE SUMMARY
* Ferrari was the team to beat in free practice, with Charles Leclerc edging out his team mate Carlos Sainz in the afternoon FP2 session – the only drivers dipping below the 1m12s barrier ­– while Red Bull’s Sergio Perez topped the time sheets in FP1. They all used the P Zero Red soft tyre to set their best times, with the softest compound in the range (called ‘C5’) making its 2021 debut at Monaco this weekend.
* Temperatures were warm and dry all day with track temperatures peaking at 45 degrees centigrade during the afternoon FP2 session. This helped the drivers to maintain tyre temperature, although as usual finding a gap in the Monaco traffic was a challenge.
* The performance gap between the tyre compounds is as expected so far: with around 0.8 seconds between the hard and the medium, and a similar gap between the medium and soft.

MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF CAR RACING
“The circuit was actually in good condition for FP2 in particular with significant track evolution, thanks also to the support events. We saw solid performance from all three compounds, with a similar time gap between all of them. As expected, the teams concentrated on the hard and medium in the morning followed by the medium and soft for their performance runs in the afternoon in preparation for qualifying – which of course, takes place the day after tomorrow in Monaco. This means that track conditions may be slightly different by the time we get to the crucial qualifying session – with a slight risk of rain before FP3, which might reset the asphalt conditions. Conditions were quite warm today, with track temperatures being a key influence on tyre wear and degradation, which is quite low in Monaco. As a result, we’ve seen nothing today to suggest that teams will deviate from the usual one-stopper at Monaco, with the soft and the medium preferred, judging from today’s run plans.”

TOP 3 TIMES
FP1
Perez		1m12.487s	SOFT C5 NEW
Sainz		1m12.606s	MEDIUM C4 USED
Verstappen	1m12.648s	MEDIUM C4 NEW

FP2
Leclerc		1m11.684s	SOFT C5 NEW
Sainz		1m11.796s	SOFT C5 NEW
Hamilton	1m12.074s	SOFT C5 NEW

BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
FP1
HARD C3		Verstappen	1m13.191s
MEDIUM C4	Sainz		1m12.606s
SOFT C5		Perez		1m12.487s

FP2
HARD C3		Sainz		1m12.749s
MEDIUM C4	Hamilton	1m12.569s
SOFT C5		Leclerc		1m11.684s

MOST LAPS BY COMPOUND SO FAR
COMPOUND	DRIVER	LAPS
HARD C3		Raikkonen	21
MEDIUM C4	Sainz		27
SOFT C5		Latifi		25

TYRE STATISTICS OF THE DAY
 			HARD	MEDIUM	SOFT
Kms driven*		907	1605	1461
Sets used overall**	17	33	28

* The above number gives the total amount of kilometres
driven in FP1 and FP2 today, all drivers combined.
** Per compound, all drivers combined.