Leclerc was millimeters faster than Perez and Saint in Monaco’s first tests

Charles Leclerc began his quest to turn the tide in Formula One’s title fight by reaching his first year in the opening round of the Monaco GP, the 7th round of this year’s championship.

On the streets of his homeland, the Monegasque was less than a tenth of a second quicker than Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and his Ferrari counterpart Carlos Saint – while fourth-year champion Max Ferstappen finished fourth.

Since the four leaders of the two top teams alternated in the early years, Mercedes experienced the return of its big bouncing problems of the W13 – as expected little due to the uniqueness of this racetrack. George Russell was seven tenths from Leclerc in 8th and Lewis Hamilton was almost a second in 10th.

Russell described the jumps as “terrible” speaking on the team’s radio, while Hamilton said the problem was returning on a paramount scale for the “Silver Arrows”. “The amount and intensity of the jumps is unbelievable”, said the 37-year-old. Similar problems arose at Ferrari, but – as always this year – did not cost them as much time as Mercedes.

Leclerc’s top time of 1’14.531 was 12 minutes from the end on the medium tire – the only type of tire used by Monegasque during the first hour of testing. Ferrari did the same with Saint, while RBR, in contrast, collected data with the hard rubber, with two sets each for Ferstappen and Perez.

The first phase of testing was interrupted for a while in the 20th minute when a problem with the Haas gearbox immobilized Mick Schumacher just before entering the pits at La Rascas. Fernando Alonso, who followed at a small distance with Alpine, had to stop himself, which closed this waypoint and raised the red flag.

This year Valteri Botas, the protagonist of the battle of the medium dynamic teams, only managed to get out on track for two laps – due to a problem in the gearbox – and did not set a fast lap.