Charles Leclerc was looking very much at home in more ways than one on Friday when he set a searing pace in practice for the Monaco Grand Prix.
While many drivers live in the Monte Carlos principality, Leclerc is the real deal when it comes to being a Monegasque born and raised on the streets of one of the most historic motorsport venues in the world.
And today it was fitting him like a glove as he set the top time of the day of 1:11.278s which was 0.188s quicker than Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton and over half a second clear of Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
"It was a great feeling to be back in the car on the streets of my home town and to feel all the support," he beamed.
And there's even worse news for his rivals, as Leclerc thinks there's more to come from the Ferrari this weekend and that he'll be able to get ore speed out of the SF-24 in qualifying tomorrow.
“If you look at my three sectors, there was quite a bit of lap time in them when you put all of it together,” he told the official Formula 1 broadcast.
“I think there’s more pace in me just putting everything together," he continued. “That will be the main focus for tomorrow, but that performance and feeling is there.
"All-in-all it seems that we have a good car for this track and I felt quite confident with it today," he said. “I think on the medium we’re really strong.
“On the soft, we struggled to put everything together. There was a lot of traffic all the way," he admitted. “But all-in-all we have a good car for the moment.
"It’s important that we keep this rhythm into FP3 because it’s the way Monaco is," he said. "It’s all about tomorrow in quali when everybody starts to go on the limit.
“Until now I think we’ve done a really, really good job. We need to keep working, keep focusing on ourselves. But it’s a positive first day," he noted.
"I might have taken a bit more risk compared to the others today, 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.
"We seem fast,” he said. “But Mercedes, that have been struggling since the beginning of the season, they are very fast this weekend. We expect them to be just the same tomorrow.
"Lewis has been on it all day so we’ve got to maximise everything tomorrow and hopefully we’ll put it on pole," he summed up. "We will give it everything to have a good one tomorrow."
Leclerc's team mate Carlos Sainz had a more subdued time on Friday, a disappointing tenth in FP1 and only improving to sixth in the later practice while Leclerc was flying.
"It was a challenging Friday for me," he conceded. "I struggled to find consistency in the car and played around quite a bit with the set-up.
"For the last stint of the day, I was happier and the long run was positive. We will focus on carrying that feeling into tomorrow's practice as we prepare for qualifying."
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