I risked more than the others today, says Charles Leclerc

Having dominated the second one-hour practice session at the Monaco Grand Prix, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc stated that his impressive form was down to the fact that he pushed more today than the others as he expects his rivals to come back on Saturday.

Hot on the heels of last weekend's home race in Imola, Ferrari had a relatively trouble-free time on the opening day at the Monaco Grand Prix, getting through all its Friday free practice programme.

Charles Leclerc topped the timesheet in the second session, with Carlos Sainz sixth. The Scuderia stated that the "aim was to do as many laps as possible so that the drivers could get to grips with racing between the walls and that goal was achieved with 141 laps completed over the two sessions, during which the team was also able to evaluate all three tyre compounds."

In the opening session, the SF-24s ran the Hard and Medium tyres while both Sainz and Leclerc used the yellow-banded tyres for their first stint in FP2 before switching to the red-walled tyres for their qualifying simulation run.

Leclerc had a slightly disrupted end to his first practice as he ran over the debris that flew off Zhou Guanyu's Kick Sauber at Sainte Devote. However, the Monégasque bounced back in the second session to set the quickest time of the day with a 1m11.278s, racking up a total of 37 laps.

Speaking of his day, Leclerc said: "All in all, it seems that we have a good car for this track and I felt quite confident with it today. We have to keep that rhythm in place for FP3, because I may have taken a bit more risk today than others did, which paid off in terms of lap times, but the key here is to put it all together in qualifying when everyone starts really pushing the limits.

"We did a good job overall and have to keep focusing on ourselves. It was a great feeling to be back in the car on the streets of my home town and to feel all the support, we will give it everything to have a good one tomorrow," said the two-time Monaco Grand Prix pole-sitter.

His team-mate Carlos Sainz had a more challenging day as he struggled for pace over a single hot lap. His best lap time in FP2 was only good enough for sixth as he was almost seven tenths of a second off Leclerc's benchmark time.

Commenting on his day, the Spaniard added: "It was a challenging Friday for me. I struggled to find consistency in the car and played around quite a bit with the set-up.

"For the last stint of the day, I was happier and the long run was positive. We will focus on carrying that feeling into tomorrow's practice as we prepare for qualifying," said the Madrid-born driver.