Formula One is celebrating the 70th running of the Grand Prix of Monaco this weekend as the cars took to the track on Friday for the first two of three Free Practice sessions around the 2.074 mile, 19 turn historic street circuit.

Using the Free Practice sessions to set the car up for qualifying is critical because, as Pirelli Media put it: "securing a good grid position [is] essential in a race where overtaking is well nigh impossible, even when there is a performance gap between cars that can run into seconds."

Much to the delight of his hometown crowd, Ferrari's Charles Leclerc had an outstanding day, running the quickest time in the afternoon session and fifth quickest time, on medium tires, in the earlier session. All quicker FP1 times were set on soft tires.

"All in all, it seems that we have a good car for this track and I felt quite confident with it today," said Leclerc. "We have to keep that rhythm in place for FP3, because I may have taken a bit more risk today than others did, which paid off in terms of lap times, but the key here is to put it all together in qualifying when everyone starts really pushing the limits."

Later in the day Ferrari stated: "The aim was to do as many laps as possible so that the drivers could get to grips with racing between the walls and that goal was achieved with 141 laps completed over the two sessions, during which the team was also able to evaluate all three tyre compounds."

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton had an encouraging Friday as well, going second quickest in FP2 and quickest in FP1. Hamilton was, however, almost a full two-tenths of a second slower than the SF-24 of Leclerc in the afternoon session.

"It's been a good day, probably the best we've had so far this year, and the car is feeling very positive," said the seven time World Champion, adding, "I was pleasantly surprised by the grip level and the way the car was responding, which made it a much more enjoyable ride than the last two years."

Two time World Champion, Fernando Alonso had the third quickest time in the afternoon session which must have pleased Aston Martin as Alonso struggled with his upgraded AMR28 the previous weekend at Imola.

Points leader and three time World Champion, Max Verstappen, of Red Bull had the fourth quickest time of the afternoon session after struggling a bit in the morning - still, however, over a half second slower than Leclerc.

"There was a lot of bounce and temperature changes on track, which also made it tricky. Every time that we went over a bump, the car lost a lot of lap time," said Verstappen, adding, "In general, the issue is a bit more difficult to solve in set up and it won't be a quick fix but we are going to work on it overnight."

McLaren's Lando Norris posted the fifth quickest time on the afternoon timesheet.

FP2 Results Summary - Leclerc, Hamilton, Alonso, Verstappen, Norris, Sainz, Stroll, Perez, Albon, Russell, Tsunoda, Piastri, Magnussen, Ocon, Hulkenberg, Ricciardo, Gasly, Sargeant, Bottas, Zhou

FP1 Results Summary - Hamilton, Piastri, Russell, Norris, Leclerc, Alonso, Stroll, Tsunoda, Ricciardo, Sainz, Verstappen, Perez, Bottas, Magnussen, Albon, Hulkenberg, Sargeant, Ocon, Zhou, Gasly

Monaco FP2 Full Results

Pos	Driver		Team		Tyre	Time		Gap

1	Leclerc		Ferrari		S	1:11.278	104.729 mph
2	Hamilton	Mercedes	S	1:11.466	0.188
3	Alonso		Aston Martin	S	1:11.753	0.475
4	Verstappen	Red Bull	S	1:11.813	0.535
5	Norris		McLaren		S	1:11.953	0.675
6	Sainz		Ferrari		S	1:11.962	0.684
7	Stroll		Aston Martin	S	1:12.062	0.784
8	Perez		Red Bull	S	1:12.099	0.821
9	Albon		Williams	S	1:12.257	0.979
10	Russell		Mercedes	S	1:12.260	0.982
11	Tsunoda		RB		M	1:12.349	1.071
12	Piastri		McLaren		M	1:12.366	1.088
13	Magnussen	Haas		S	1:12.473	1.195
14	Ocon		Alpine		S	1:12.554	1.276
15	Hulkenberg	Haas		S	1:12.569	1.291
16	Ricciardo	RB		M	1:12.577	1.299
17	Gasly		Alpine		S	1:12.750	1.472
18	Sargeant	Williams	S	1:12.790	1.512
19	Bottas		Stake		M	1:13.057	1.779
20	Zhou		Stake		M	1:13.773	2.495

Monaco FP1 Full Results

Pos	Driver		Team		Tyre	Time		Gap

1	Hamilton	Mercedes	S	1:12.169	103.436 mph
2	Piastri		McLaren		S	1:12.198	0.029
3	Russell		Mercedes	S	1:12.295	0.126
4	Norris		McLaren		S	1:12.396	0.227
5	Leclerc		Ferrari		M	1:12.397	0.228
6	Alonso		Aston Martin	S	1:12.775	0.606
7	Stroll		Aston Martin	S	1:12.789	0.620
8	Tsunoda		RB		S	1:12.875	0.706
9	Ricciardo	RB		S	1:12.901	0.732
10	Sainz		Ferrari		M	1:12.954	0.785
11	Verstappen	Red Bull	M	1:12.984	0.815
12	Perez		Red Bull	M	1:13.229	1.060
13	Bottas		Stake		S	1:13.248	1.079
14	Magnussen	Haas		M	1:13.390	1.221
15	Albon		Williams	M	1:13.425	1.256
16	Hulkenberg	Haas		M	1:13.576	1.407
17	Sargeant	Williams	M	1:14.150	1.981
18	Ocon		Alpine		M	1:14.159	1.990
19	Zhou		Stake		S	1:14.570	2.401
20	Gasly	Alpine	M	1:15.574	3.405

(image provided by Mercedes F1 Media/Jiri Krenek)