An unusual day in the Principality of Monaco, on this Friday of free practice which did not take place, as usual for the Monaco GP, on Thursday.

Both FP1 and FP2 saw Ferrari in the lead, with Charles Leclerc that set the fastest time of the day on soft tyres in 1'12 "656. In the first free practice session Perez set the second best time and Verstappen the fourth, ending up behind Carlos Sainz

A fast start to Friday 📈 Checo finishes FP1 in P2 with Max in P4 💪 #MonacoGP 🇲🇨 pic.twitter.com/BXZIVLTZb8

— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) May 27, 2022

In the second free practice session, Ferrari managed to place both cars in front of the Red Bulls, with Perez finishing in third position and Verstappen not moving from the fourth place.

Friday in Monaco 🏁 The flag falls for FP2 with Checo in P3 and Max P4 👏 #MonacoGP 🇲🇨 pic.twitter.com/jPpgiqZNrP

— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) May 27, 2022

“If you just look at the years so far, I think we seem to struggle a little bit more over one lap in general, if you take all the tracks, and of course we all know here that the one lap performance is incredibly important,” the current championship leader and word champion, Max Verstappen, said.

“We just have to try and really focus on that, to really make the one lap performance work. But you know, around here it’s also about confidence, you need to feel confident in the car, so I think that’s what we’ll try to build up in practice.

“In general we are confident, but around here in Monaco it’s on a different level. You have to build it up [the confidence], because you don’t know the grip levels initally, you are testing out a different kind of tyre compounds, and with the walls being so close you van’t even have a tiny lock up, you can’t save the car because you end up in the guardrail, so it’s a bit different.

His teammate, Sergio Perez, opened up on Ferrari being the favorite for this weekend:

"We'll see, but we believe Ferrari are going to be particularly strong in this place,

“I feel They're very strong in the low-speed, the ride over the kerbs is very good, so they were already [strong] last year and they didn't have a good car, so I expect them to be very competitive here.

"But we'll see. I think after today, we'll have a bit more of an idea if we are able to challenge them tomorrow.”

Then he said that right now he's still fighting for the championship: "The team told me they want me to win, and that will be the best for the team. You know I’m not that far away in the championship, and we’re only at the sixth race, so there’s still a long way to go.