OMNISPORT

Daniel Ricciardo went quickest in both Thursday practice sessions at the Monaco Grand Prix as Red Bull dominated the timesheets. The Australian set a new track record to claim top spot in FP2, with teammate Max Verstappen two tenths back. Ricciardo will have added motivation to perform this week after team errors scuppered his chances around the streets of Monte Carlo in both 2016 and 2017.

Verstappen escaped punishment after reversing back onto the circuit after a lock-up during FP1 and was involved in a minor scrape with Haas' Romain Grosjean in the second session.

Sebastian Vettel was more than half a second off the pace in the afternoon session, with championship leader Lewis Hamilton going fourth fastest, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas.

Speaking after the first session, in which Red Bull also completed an impressive one-two finish, team boss Christian Horner said: "Firstly, it’s only Thursday morning, so it doesn't mean too much, but what we can say is that the circuit is very quick this year. The resurfacing has definitely improved lap times and the cars are circulating close to 1.5 seconds faster than this time last year, so that's encouraging. Both drivers seem reasonably comfortable in the car. But as we've seen, Saturday has been our weakness throughout the season.

"We've always had a strong race car, but Saturday is where we’ve tended to struggle, at the business end of qualifying. But hopefully with the shorter straights here and with this circuit layout, it offers us our best qualifying chance of the season."