Vettel wary of Red Bull pace in Monaco

Sebastian Vettel highlighted Red Bull as a threat for pole position despite setting the pace in FP2 for the Monaco Grand Prix.

After Lewis Hamilton was quickest in FP1, Vettel topped the times by nearly half a second in the afternoon session as Mercedes struggled due to a setup error. Daniel Ricciardo was second quickest in FP2 and Max Verstappen sixth, and while Vettel is expecting Mercedes to bounce back on Saturday he's also wary of Red Bull's potential in qualifying.

"It's only Thursday so there's a little bit of time, but I don't know what happened today – it was a bit weird," Vettel said. "But I'm pretty sure there was a reason; they will be back to full force on Saturday.

"So it will be close, also with Red Bull. Around here it's also important to have a good feel for the car to get the lap together, so you cannot always go with the one time you set at the end of the day; but surely we managed to put it together, and we're quite happy."

Despite being second quickest in FP1, Vettel was also critical of his own driving in the morning session, having clipped the barrier on the inside of the Swimming Pool section.

"I was pretty happy in the afternoon. In the morning may be I was a bit wild, touching the walls a couple of times, but the afternoon seemed a bit better. Still we have some work to do on the car but it's more fun this year – the cars are faster, so it's been a good day.

"It's only Thursday so we need to do it on Saturday, but it's good to get into the groove and get a feel for the car. I was very happy the first run in the morning so since then we didn't have to change that much, but we improved the car for the afternoon. The conditions I think were also a bit like they will be on Saturday and Sunday, so..."

Vettel's lap time of 1:12.720 in FP2 was a new lap record for the current configuration of the Monaco circuit, with the championship leader beating last year's pole position time by 0.9s.