Charles Leclerc remains favourite for Monaco F1 pole after topping final practice

Charles Leclerc continued his strong run in practice after he topped the timesheets in FP3 at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Leclerc remains the driver to beat ahead of qualifying later today as his 1m11.369s put him top of the pile.

The home hero has taken pole position in Monaco on two previous occasions, but remarkably, he’s never stood on the podium.

Leclerc’s advantage over Max Verstappen was just under two-tenths, with the Dutchman fighting the RB20.

Verstappen will be pleased with his time after trailing Leclerc by around 0.7s after the first laps on the second set of soft tyres.

It’s a similar story for Lewis Hamilton, who’s looked impressive in the Mercedes W14 in Monte Carlo.

It wasn’t an entirely straightforward session though for the seven-time world champion as he destroyed his first set of tyres with a lock-up into Turn 1.

However, Hamilton was back on the pace immediately when he returned to the track with 20 minutes on the clock.

Hamilton set the third-fastest time, within four-tenths of Leclerc’s impressive benchmark.

Oscar Piastri was the lead McLaren again as he ended practice in fourth ahead of the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez.

George Russell ended in sixth ahead of Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris, while Yuki Tsunoda and Fernando Alonso rounded out the top 10.

It was a miserable session for Valtteri Bottas, who failed to set a lap time after clipping the wall early on.

He caused the only red flag stoppage of the session as he came to a halt at the penultimate corner after sustaining front-right suspension damage.