Verstappen leaves Monaco's key question unanswered

After Mercedes followed up its five consecutive one-two finishes with first and second place in 'Friday' practice for the Monaco Grand Prix, you might think this guarantees more of the same weekend. But there was at least the hint of a possible threat - and it wasn't from Ferrari.

Max Verstappen split the two Mercedes drivers in the morning practice session, but was unable to complete a performance run in the afternoon thanks to a radiator leak caused by debris flying into the airbox. At this point, Verstappen was still on his first set of softs. When he hit the track for seven laps late on he didn't make a proper qualifying simulation attempt.

Even Verstappen in a Red Bull that is a little slower could be within striking distance

Verstappen would surely have lapped quicker than Pierre Gasly - he had been 0.984 seconds faster than his team-mate in the morning. Were that gap repeated in practice two that would have put Verstappen fastest, as Gasly was 0.820s slower than pacesetter Lewis Hamilton.

Given Gasly was much happier with the car in the second session, it would be wildly presumptuous to say that Verstappen really would have been fastest, but it means he at least goes into Saturday as a potential wildcard.

With Ferrari, as anticipated, not appearing to be a serious threat based on the three hours of running on Thursday, it seems Verstappen is the one who might have the potential to attack the Silver Arrows.

On track, he was his usual virtuoso self and there were a few moments where he was extremely close to the barriers, but this is a Verstappen who is very different to the one that lost a victory shot by crashing in final practice last year. If he gets a sniff of an opportunity, he will seize it.

Single-lap pace

1 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m11.118s
2 Ferrari (Vettel), 1m11.881s
3 Red Bull (Gasly), 1m11.938s
4 Toro Rosso (Albon), 1m12.031s
5 Haas (Magnussen), 1m12.174s
6 Alfa Romeo (Giovinazzi), 1m12.239s
7 McLaren (Norris), 1m12.393s
8 Racing Point (Perez), 1m12.752s
9 Renault (Hulkenberg), 1m12.872s
10 Williams (Russell), 1m15.052s

Verstappen himself said he was happy with the balance and felt the car was quick, although he pointed to the gap between Mercedes and Ferrari as the slot he was most likely to head into.

On average this season, Mercedes has taken a bigger step in terms of lap time improvement from second practice to Q3 (by 0.280%) than Red Bull. This is partly down to the qualifying engine modes Honda can't match, but these modes should be worth slightly less in Monaco.

It's also a circuit where the driver has a slightly higher influence on the overall lap time thanks to how easy it is to make errors, meaning even Verstappen in a Red Bull that is a little slower could be within striking distance. That's what makes him the one the Mercedes drivers should fear, even if, as Verstappen suggested would be the case during the Spanish GP weekend two weeks ago, the Mercedes is the quicker car overall.

Gasly suggested Red Bull's fight was with Ferrari, although the pattern on Thursday suggested Red Bull could find itself a clear second.

"We can see that we're in the fight with Ferrari," said Gasly. "Mercedes is quite a long way ahead of us but we'll have to work and see what we can extract on Saturday. But think overall was a positive day, it's just a shame we could not get more running with Max, but I think we still have more performance to get out of the package we have on Saturday."

Long-run pace is of limited relevance at Monaco given we can expect a straightforward race with track position counting for more than at any other circuit. As has become the norm at Monaco, it should be a one-stop race again this year, unless the expected higher temperatures on race day throw in an unexpected curveball, meaning there's little chance for a car with much better long-run pace to find the clear air to make gains. But for what it's worth, Mercedes looks even stronger - albeit with the same caveat that applies to the single-lap pace that for Red Bull we must use Gasly's running.

Long-run pace

1 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m14.881s
2 Red Bull (Gasly), 1m15.740s
3 Toro Rosso (Albon), 1m15.886s
4 Ferrari (Vettel), 1m16.315s
5 Alfa Romeo (Raikkonen), 1m16.380s
6 McLaren (Sainz), 1m16.411s
7 Haas (Magnussen), 1m16.506s
8 Racing Point (Perez), 1m16.626s
9 Renault (Ricciardo), 1m17.044s
10 Williams (Kubica), 1m18.340s

With Ferrari appearing even further off on long-run pace - misleadingly, most likely - the question is whether it can find more performance. There's a big question mark here, as what was a big strength last season, specifically the ability to improve dramatically from one day to the next, hasn't been there this year.

To put a number on that, Ferrari was, on average, 2.397% quicker in Q3 than it was in practice two in 2018. This year, that step has dropped to 1.692% on average, while Mercedes remains at a similar level (2.511% last year, 2.430% this year).

"Not yet the full level of confidence," was Vettel's verdict. "Overall, a tricky day, tricky to get the tyres in the right window - we struggled a bit more than other people. It's not the first time we've seen this on 'Friday' so I'm looking forward to Saturday, we have a bit of time now to try a couple of things and go through some stuff."

It would probably need perfection from Red Bull and problems for Mercedes to topple the Silver Arrows

Ferrari devoted a large amount of its test running after the Spanish GP to set-up experiments as it played around with how to get the best out of its car and, in particular, the tyres. On this latter point, Charles Leclerc said the car was inconsistent on Thursday.

As has become the trend, Toro Rosso's race pace looks stellar. While it won't be bothering the top three teams on outright performance, Alex Albon's speed both on a single lap and over a long run suggests being best of the rest is feasible.

Renault, both on single-lap and long-run pace, looks to be struggling despite having 2018 Monaco GP winner Daniel Ricciardo on its books. The Renault looked stronger in the morning, but afternoon set-up changes proved not to work and both Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg went backwards.

"The morning, we looked alright," said Ricciardo. "We got up to speed pretty quickly, so the initial feeling was quite good. But then we didn't really make that extra step forward for the afternoon.

"We made some changes, I don't think they worked, so we'll understand why and try and go back one or two steps and get back to a more happy-feeling car."

Back at the front, it was as straightforward a day as could have been hoped for for the Mercedes drivers. Both seemed relatively happy with the set-up of the car and, from trackside during first practice, look well dialled in and able to attack the kerbs at the Swimming Pool without unsettling the car as badly as some rivals.

The only problem that cropped up was that it was taking time to extract peak pace from the soft Pirellis.

"Our number one concern is getting the soft tyre to work on the first lap; our headline times were good today but it took us a lot of laps to get there and qualifying is so important at this track," said chief race engineer Andrew Shovlin. "We've got Esteban [Ocon] in the simulator this evening and tomorrow so hopefully he can help with some of that learning."

With Mercedes likely to build on its firm foundation, Hamilton and Bottas are clear favourites heading into qualifying. For those who would like to see the 2019 Formula 1 season to offer a little more variety, Verstappen appears to be the best hope this weekend - but even then, it would probably need perfection from Red Bull and problems for Mercedes.