Both Thursday practice sessions in Monaco have each been cut to one hour in 2021, instead of the usual 90 minutes each.

FP1 was topped by Red Bull's Sergio Perez, and Leclerc was fastest in FP2 – leading a Ferrari 1-2.

Monaco Grand Prix FP1 results: Perez fastest from Sainz

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	36	1'12.487
2	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Ferrari	32	1'12.606	0.119	0.119
3	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	39	1'12.648	0.161	0.042
4	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	37	1'12.929	0.442	0.281
5	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	34	1'12.995	0.508	0.066
6	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	36	1'13.131	0.644	0.136
7	Lando Norris	McLaren	31	1'13.236	0.749	0.105
8	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	33	1'13.732	1.245	0.496
9	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	39	1'13.746	1.259	0.014
10	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	31	1'14.081	1.594	0.335
11	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	33	1'14.090	1.603	0.009
12	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	27	1'14.106	1.619	0.016
13	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	37	1'14.205	1.718	0.099
14	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	41	1'14.268	1.781	0.063
15	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	36	1'14.281	1.794	0.013
16	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	37	1'14.320	1.833	0.039
17	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	33	1'14.616	2.129	0.296
18	Mick Schumacher	Haas	35	1'14.801	2.314	0.185
19	George Russell	Williams	35	1'14.840	2.353	0.039
20	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	4	1'19.618	7.131	4.778
View full results

What happened in Free Practice 1?

Carlos Sainz set the early pace for Ferrari at 1m14.457s on medium tyres, lowering it to 1m13.639s and 1m13.388s as the track rubbered-in. Sainz’s running in this session was doubly important as Ferrari lost Leclerc with a gearbox failure after a handful of laps.

Unlike the majority of teams, Red Bull evaluated the hard tyres initially, Red Bull's Max Verstappen having one flying lap ruined by Haas’s Nikita Mazepin at the Swimming Pool. Verstappen was fourth in the early going, behind Sainz and the Mercedes duo.

Once he worked his way clear of the traffic, Verstappen leapt to P1 after 28 minutes – despite using the hard tyre – but was topped by Valtteri Bottas just after the halfway mark with a lap of 1m13.131s. Lewis Hamilton then beat that with 1m12.995s – both Mercs using the mediums.

Sainz went back to the top on 1m12.965s with 25 minutes remaining, before Pierre Gasly topped it with 1m12.929s as AlphaTauri ran early on soft tyres. Sainz then hit the wall on the exit of the Swimming Pool, sending the sole Ferrari into the garage.

Verstappen went P1 on mediums with a lap of 1m12.648s, a tenth clear of Perez who was using softs. On his second attempt on the softs, Perez went P1 on 1m12.536s, and the repaired car of Sainz bounced back to P2, 0.07s down, the fastest of the medium users.

In the closing seconds of the session, Perez improved his quickest time to 1m12.487s.

Verstappen was third, within two tenths of Perez, ahead of Gasly (set on softs), Hamilton, Bottas and Lando Norris, who was running in McLaren’s smart new Gulf Oils livery. Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin), Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) and Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen.

Fernando Alonso hit the wall at the final corner, damaging his Alpine’s front wing. Elsewhere, Raikkonen locked up and straightlined Sainte Devote, something the Alonso also did with 20 minutes remaining.

Monaco Grand Prix FP2 results: Leclerc fastest from Sainz

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	30	1'11.684
2	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Ferrari	32	1'11.796	0.112	0.112
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	28	1'12.074	0.390	0.278
4	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	27	1'12.081	0.397	0.007
5	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	32	1'12.107	0.423	0.026
6	Lando Norris	McLaren	24	1'12.379	0.695	0.272
7	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	28	1'12.498	0.814	0.119
8	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	24	1'12.708	1.024	0.210
9	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	28	1'12.746	1.062	0.038
10	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	26	1'12.982	1.298	0.236
11	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	31	1'13.065	1.381	0.083
12	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	27	1'13.175	1.491	0.110
13	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	26	1'13.195	1.511	0.020
14	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	28	1'13.199	1.515	0.004
15	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	26	1'13.257	1.573	0.058
16	George Russell	Williams	32	1'13.509	1.825	0.252
17	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	31	1'13.593	1.909	0.084
18	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	26	1'14.407	2.723	0.814
19	Mick Schumacher	Haas	25	1'14.416	2.732	0.009
20	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	11	1'14.829	3.145	0.413
View full results

What happened in Free Practice 2?

In FP2, Verstappen set the early pace at 1m13.499s on medium tyres. Hamilton had to abort his first flying lap after cutting the harbour chicane, but equalled Verstappen’s time to the thousandth of a second at his second attempt – also using mediums.

Verstappen then set 1m13.241s, but hit traffic at the end of his lap, as Hamilton produced 1m12.772s to gap Verstappen by almost half a second. Hamilton improved to 1m12.569s, with Verstappen getting to within 0.232s. Sainz then split them, going P2 on the hard tyre at 1m12.749s, before Bottas knocked him back to third.

Bottas and Hamilton switched to the soft tyres just before the halfway point, Bottas setting 1m12.107 and Hamilton on 1m12.280s after a couple of big slides. Sainz, now using the soft, beat them all with 1m11.796s, with Hamilton and Verstappen failing to get within a quarter of a second.

Despite missing most of FP1, Leclerc jumped up to P1 with 18 minutes to go, unleashing 1m11.684s to beat his teammate by 0.112s to make it a Ferrari 1-2. Hamilton was third, ahead of Verstappen and Bottas. Norris, Gasly, Perez, Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) and Vettel rounded out the top 10.

Haas F1’s Mick Schumacher hit the wall at Massenet, and was forced to stop before he got back to the pits due to the damage to his right-rear corner. The session was red flagged with less than five minutes remaining.