REPORT: Up and Running in Monaco

Our first two hours of track running in Monaco are complete, and the team has already begun poring over the mountains of data gathered in the principality.

Friday in Monaco is often about our drivers getting their eye in and finding a rhythm around this famously narrow circuit, but Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz weren’t shy about getting up to speed. FP1 saw Alex finish P4 with a 1:12.314, with Carlos just behind after a 1:12.534 put him P7.

The opening hour was briefly halted by an early red flag, and FP2 brought two more stoppages. Despite the disruption, we got plenty of laps under our belt – 135 across both sessions.

Alex’s best effort in FP2, a 1:11.918, saw him finish the day in P8. Carlos ended P13 with a fastest time of 1:12.151.

"I don’t think we are totally happy with the car yet," Alex shared after his Friday.

"There’s a rhythm that you need around Monaco and it’s been quite a disjointed day because of all the yellow and red flags, so I haven’t found that feeling yet.

"We are relatively quick, and the car is not quite there yet, so we need to go through the data, make some changes tonight and get well prepared for tomorrow.

Across the other side of the garage, Carlos added: "We started FP1 with a car that wasn’t giving me a lot of confidence, but I still managed to do some good laps.

"I had some work to do on setup and for FP2 we introduced some changes that unfortunately didn’t seem to work and we took a step back. We’ve got work for tomorrow, but I’m confident we can find the right balance and do a good build up for Qualifying."