Monaco F2: Leclerc leads Canamasas in practice

Leclerc, racing on his home streets for the first time in his career, set a best lap of 1m19.722s with just under 10 minutes of the 45-minute practice session remaining.

The majority of the field set their fastest laps using the super-soft tyres towards the end of practice after completing the early running on the soft rubber.

Canamasas topped the times after those initial laps had been completed – he survived clipping the barriers at the exit of Portier on the run into the tunnel a third of the way into the session – and improved his fastest time when he switched to the super-softs.

But the Trident driver – who has started 94 GP2 and F2 races in his career – wound up 0.139s adrift of championship leader Leclerc when the 19-year-old completed his own super-soft run a few moments later.

DAMS driver Oliver Rowland, who also enjoyed a spell at the top of the times early on shortly after he had waved at Leclerc in frustration when he came across the Prema Racing driver going slowly through the Swimming Pool section of the lap, ended up third fastest ahead of Arden racer Norman Nato.

Alexander Albon was fifth for ART Grand Prix, in front of Russian Time’s Luca Ghiotto and McLaren F1 junior driver Nyck de Vries, who was the first driver to sample to the super-soft rubber entering the closing stages of the session.

Artem Markelov – winner of a chaotic GP2 feature race in Monaco in 2016 – was eighth, as Nicholas Latifi and Johnny Cecotto rounded out the top 10.

Jordan King finished 11th for MP Motorsport, and the Briton was one of two drivers who misjudged their braking for St Devote and had to take to the escape road.

The other was Campos Racing’s new F2 signing Robert Visoiu, who locked up and went off at the right-hander early on in the session.

In a session where drivers struggled to find space in the traffic, the only contact came when Nabil Jeffri hit the rear of Sergio Sette Camara’s MP Motorsport car under braking for the chicane at the exit of the tunnel.

The stewards will investigate the incident after the session.

Practice results

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	1	Charles Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	25	1'19.722
2	17	Sergio Canamasas	Trident	23	1'19.861	0.139
3	9	Oliver Rowland	DAMS	24	1'19.868	0.146
4	20	Norman Nato	Arden International	25	1'20.058	0.336
5	8	Alexander Albon	ART Grand Prix	26	1'20.366	0.644
6	5	Luca Ghiotto	RUSSIAN TIME	24	1'20.515	0.793
7	18	Nyck de Vries	Rapax	26	1'20.530	0.808
8	6	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	23	1'20.540	0.818
9	10	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	26	1'20.866	1.144
10	19	Johnny Cecotto	Rapax	22	1'20.944	1.222
11	15	Jordan King	MP Motorsport	25	1'21.013	1.291
12	21	Sean Gelael	Arden International	23	1'21.099	1.377
13	12	Robert Visoiu	Campos Racing	26	1'21.103	1.381
14	7	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	26	1'21.123	1.401
15	4	Gustav Malja	Racing Engineering	26	1'21.305	1.583
16	2	Antonio Fuoco	Prema Powerteam	23	1'21.791	2.069
17	3	Louis Deletraz	Racing Engineering	24	1'21.987	2.265
18	14	Sergio Sette Camara	MP Motorsport	26	1'22.064	2.342
19	11	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	26	1'22.111	2.389
20	16	Nabil Jeffri	Trident	24	1'22.130	2.408