At the end of the two free practice sessions, on a track that was rapidly evolving and with lap times consistently going down, Scuderia Ferrari drivers Seb Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen came away with the third and fifth best times in P2 respectively, while the SF71H showed a consistent pace in race-trim simulation.

Kimi Raikkonen: "This first day was not too bad, a pretty normal Thursday. The feeling with the car was not too bad, but this track is always quite tricky to start with, and we were trying many different things. The drive around the circuit is a bit more complicated than in other places; it's easier to end up making a big mistake, while in a normal place you would just end in a run-off area. You need to be more careful and start pushing when you feel that everything is all right. For sure there are things to improve, but we were able to do what was planned and managed to stay out of trouble. It's difficult to have a clear picture; in many practice sessions we have seen some cars being very fast on Friday and then in qualifying it's a different case. Let's wait and see what happens on Saturday."

Sebastian Vettel: "I think it was a decent day. In Monaco there's always traffic, and today we had the red flag, so that it was a bit messy. It's not that easy to get everything together in a lap here. I am not entirely happy about the second and the last sector. So, I think there's something we can do better. I believe we got the best out of the tires and on Saturday it will be very close.

"There isn't more pressure on this track than on the others, but I think it's more fun. The track is very challenging and you have no room for mistakes but it's quite enjoyable. You think twice before trying something here. However, I have a good feeling with the car. Today I trusted my car and even if I was sliding a little bit, I knew I wouldn't have touched the barrier. We still need to improve, but generally it's good fun driving around."

Check out our Thursday gallery from Monaco, here.