Ferrari were quickest in Friday practice

Another home pole for Leclerc? Ferrari fastest on all compounds: Practice data

2025 Monaco GP Friday practice analysis

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The day before practice began in Monaco Charles Leclerc made it clear he did not fancy his chances of repeating his 2024 victory from pole position.

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“Our car hasn’t been particularly strong in low-speed corners,” he said. “And there’s only low-speed corners here in Monaco. So on paper, it doesn’t look like the most promising track for us.”

But he added a caveat: “Monaco is so unique and so different from anything we race on over the season that we can have a good surprise once we put the car down tomorrow – which I hope will happen.”

Having topped the first two practice sessions on Friday, it looks like that has indeed happened for Leclerc. Could Ferrari break the McLaren-Red Bull duopoly of poles and wins this year at Leclerc’s home track?

Teams’ 2024 performance in context

Last year Monaco was the first track where Ferrari took pole position (indeed, it was the first track where anyone other than Max Verstappen took pole position). In relative terms, this was one of Red Bull’s weaker venues, though Haas, Aston Martin and most notably Sauber under-performed compared to their average pace across the season.

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Teams’ progress vs 2024

Around half of the Monaco circuit has been resurfaced this year, which has made it smoother than before in places. As was the case last weekend at Imola, Pirelli has brought tyres that are one stage softer.

These factors might ordinarily be expected to lead to faster lap times. But Monaco tends to be very ‘green’ early in a weekend and the grip levels increase rapidly, which likely explains why only one team has already lapped faster than they managed last year. This is Sauber, who were over a second off their rivals’ pace 12 months ago.

Teams’ 2024 and 2025 times

Ferrari’s pace advantage over McLaren on the soft tyres in second practice was narrow: just three hundredths of a second. But most encouragingly for the team they were quicker than all their rivals across all three compounds: Leclerc on the soft (1’11.355) and hard (1’12.103), Lewis Hamilton on the medium (1’12.025).

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First and second practice times

Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Monaco, 2025
Verstappen was only 0.004s faster than Tsunoda
Throughout the season so far Red Bull have tended to lap further off the pace on Friday, then close the gap on Saturday. The pattern so far this weekend looks strikingly similar to Imola: Verstappen was well off the front-running pace in second practice, but the almost non-existent gap between the two Red Bulls does not compare at all to what we’ve seen in qualifying, where Yuki Tsunoda has barely been any closer to him than Liam Lawson was.

The picture is muddied further by the high impact traffic and red flags had on drivers’ opportunities to set flying lap times on Friday. But even factoring all that in, Ferrari look more competitive in Monaco than they have all year.

Leclerc has taken pole position for three of the last four races in Monaco (he was unable to start there in 2021 after suffering a technical problem during his reconnaissance laps). Remarkably, just a week after Ferrari’s double Q2 exit in their home race at Imola, he might have a shot at pole at his home race after all.

P. # Driver Team FP1 time FP2 time Gap Laps
1 16 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1’11.964 1’11.355 65
2 81 Oscar Piastri McLaren-Mercedes 1’12.342 1’11.393 0.038 56
3 44 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 1’12.690 1’11.460 0.105 60
4 4 Lando Norris McLaren-Mercedes 1’12.290 1’11.677 0.322 64
5 30 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls-Honda RBPT 1’13.429 1’11.823 0.468 69
6 6 Isack Hadjar Racing Bulls-Honda RBPT 1’13.187 1’11.842 0.487 52
7 14 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin-Mercedes 1’12.727 1’11.890 0.535 58
8 23 Alexander Albon Williams-Mercedes 1’12.314 1’11.918 0.563 67
9 12 Andrea Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 1’12.765 1’12.002 0.647 66
10 1 Max Verstappen Red Bull-Honda RBPT 1’12.127 1’12.068 0.713 59
11 22 Yuki Tsunoda Red Bull-Honda RBPT 1’13.232 1’12.072 0.717 62
12 63 George Russell Mercedes 1’12.482 1’12.092 0.737 65
13 55 Carlos Sainz Jnr Williams-Mercedes 1’12.534 1’12.151 0.796 68
14 5 Gabriel Bortoleto Sauber-Ferrari 1’13.470 1’12.234 0.879 58
15 87 Oliver Bearman Haas-Ferrari 1’13.329 1’12.259 0.904 67
16 27 Nico Hulkenberg Sauber-Ferrari 1’12.979 1’12.262 0.907 62
17 10 Pierre Gasly Alpine-Renault 1’12.669 1’12.404 1.049 63
18 18 Lance Stroll Aston Martin-Mercedes 1’15.635 1’12.512 1.157 34
19 31 Esteban Ocon Haas-Ferrari 1’13.394 1’12.541 1.186 64
20 43 Franco Colapinto Alpine-Renault 1’13.820 1’13.415 2.060 63

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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5 comments on “Another home pole for Leclerc? Ferrari fastest on all compounds: Practice data”

  1. Profile Photo

    PeteB (@peteb)
    23rd May 2025, 23:29

    It’s yet another example of how the 2025 cars seems to be faster when they’re not nice to drive. Leclerc was constantly complaining about how the car was “all over the place” and yet he’s been really quick. When the car is nice to drive (as Hamilton talked about in Imola), it’s slow.

    Same with how the 2nd Red Bull driver always struggles because the car is a nightmare to drive and yet Max can deal with it and is super fast… I don’t know why it is but it seems to be a recurring thing and I think it makes it really difficult to set the car up. It’s counter-intuitive because you make changes to improve the feeling but then the pace drops off.

    1. Profile Photo

      Sham (@sham)
      24th May 2025, 7:40

      There’s only one thing wrong with your summary above – Ferrari, and particularly Hamilton, was very quick in Imola.

      I won’t miss this generation of cars, and I’m glad that the miss step is being removed relatively quickly. I hope the ’26 cars are better for racing, but I honestly don’t think so – too much reliance on gimmicks again. It’s all getting a bit Mario Kart.

      We’ll see, but ever since the current engine regs came in, and before that DRS and pirelli tyres, no… actually before that – ever since KERS came in, it’s been one sticking plaster over another to try and promote better racing.

      Better racing is purer racing. The 2008 cars, with modern crash structures, sustainable fuels and simplified aero would do that. Light, nimble and fun to watch. Yes there would be less overtaking, but racing is not measured by number of overtakes. It’s measured by the intensity of the battle.

      Sorry, that went on a tangent rather quickly, didn’t it?

  2. Dd
    24th May 2025, 9:53

    It doesn’t really matter who is faster – it’s Monaco

    1. Profile Photo

      Esploratore (@esploratore1)
      24th May 2025, 10:18

      It does! You still need to be faster in quali, and then you never know with the 2 mandatory pit stops, undercutting and overcutting might happen and you only get that chance if you’re faster.

    2. Profile Photo

      Esploratore (@esploratore1)
      24th May 2025, 10:18

      Raikkonen lost a race to vettel from pole in 2017 because he wasn’t as fast as him.

Comments are closed.