A fifty-five-second Ferrari one-two. A McLaren breakdown at the Nouvelle Chicane. A brake fire at Casino Square that ended practice early.

Lewis Hamilton topped second practice for the Monaco Grand Prix on Friday afternoon, leading a second consecutive Ferrari one-two with a 1:13.026 that placed him 0.111 seconds clear of Charles Leclerc and just under two tenths ahead of Max Verstappen. The session was brought to a premature end when Sergio Perez’s Cadillac caught fire at Casino Square in the closing minutes, with a brake-related blaze producing a red flag that the FIA elected not to restart. Hamilton’s lap, set during the cooler late-afternoon conditions on Pirelli’s soft compound, was one of the strongest Ferrari times recorded on a Friday in 2026.

The session began with both Ferrari drivers continuing where they had finished FP1. Leclerc set an early benchmark of 1:14.240 on the medium compound, with Hamilton 0.066s behind on 1:14.306. Both drivers improved across the opening twenty minutes. Hamilton then produced a 1:13.729 on softs, in a lap that included several visibly aggressive slides through the high-speed Swimming Pool section. Verstappen slotted into second, with Leclerc briefly displaced before the Monegasque also improved. Mercedes pair Kimi Antonelli and George Russell sat fourth and fifth, with Russell experiencing his own wild moment exiting the Swimming Pool and only just keeping his car out of the barriers. The Briton would later acknowledge having had to drive “like a gorilla” to keep the W17 within the white lines.

The first major incident of the session was Lando Norris’ breakdown. The McLaren driver ground to a halt at the Nouvelle Chicane in his MCL40, with a suspected battery problem ending his session early. The stoppage triggered a Virtual Safety Car (a slower-pace caution that allows marshals to recover the car without fully stopping the session) and broke the rhythm of an opening twenty minutes that had been busy with green and purple sectors flashing across the timing screens. For Norris, who took his first Monaco victory at last year’s event, the failure came on the weekend McLaren had built around its 1000th Grand Prix milestone. The team’s biggest commercial week of the season had produced its first reliability issue.

The decisive moment came as the session approached its closing phase. Sergio Perez’s Cadillac CFR1, running in the lower midfield as has been the team’s pattern across the opening rounds, suffered a brake fire entering Casino Square. The Mexican was able to pull off-line safely, but the fire required a marshalling response that effectively ended the session. The red flag came with less than ten minutes remaining. Race control elected not to restart, and the timing screens froze on the Ferrari one-two that Hamilton had built across the previous fifty minutes.

The competitive readout was the same as FP1, only sharper. Ferrari finished one-two with Verstappen third, less than two tenths covering the top three. Mercedes were 0.379 seconds back through Russell, with Antonelli a further tenth adrift in fifth. McLaren were a full second off the leading pace even on the car that survived the session, with Piastri seventh between Hadjar’s repaired Red Bull and Hulkenberg’s Audi. The pattern from the morning had not just held. It had deepened.

Leclerc’s post-session assessment kept the framing realistic. “Max has been very strong. Red Bull have been very strong and Lewis has been very strong,” the Monegasque said. “At the end of the day, it’s not been a disastrous day. We are very close to Lewis in FP2. I’m not so worried but it’s going to be a tough qualifying for sure, and it will be very tight.” Hamilton described it as the team’s best day of the season, with the Ferrari feeling comfortable in a way the SF-25 had rarely managed at any street circuit. Saturday will compress these margins into a single qualifying hour. The fire that ended FP2 closed the day on the team that has yet to score a point at this venue. The order it left behind belongs to the two teams that may decide the weekend.

Thumbnail: By courtesy of Pirelli