Record-breaking Ricciardo leads impressive Red Bull Monaco showing

It was a day for Red Bull to smile about on Thursday as they looked the team to beat for the Monaco Grand Prix. Practice performance is no guarantee of Sunday success, of course, but Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo may well be brimming with confidence.

BULLS ON PARADE

Ricciardo ended both practices sessions at the top of the timesheets, setting new lap records in the process, with the benchmark lowered to one minute 11.841 seconds by the end of the day.

The Australian was half a second clear of third-placed Sebastian Vettel, and a tenth clear of his team-mate.

On average, Red Bull have been 0.6seconds adrift of the pole-sitter in 2018, so a front-row lockout is perhaps not quite guaranteed, but a slew of additional qualifying-simulation laps are hoped to pay off in two days' time.

"Saturday's been the time of the weekend we've been struggling and this track is all about where you qualify," Christian Horner told Channel 4 during FP2. "We've weighted heavily trying to get a good Saturday. If you get that, you can weave like a good'n on the Sunday."

Lewis Hamilton split the Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen to suggest that fight at the front could be as close as it has been all year.

A red flag denied us a better look at race pace, although it is usually an immaterial indicator at this track anyway!

MCLAREN MUSCLE IN ON MIDFIELD

As has become somewhat customary in Monaco, the lower-powered cars enjoyed success and both Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne placed in the top 10 in Friday's second session.

McLaren got both cars into Q3 with their wretched Honda power unit last year, so they will face some tough questions if they cannot do likewise with a more powerful engine on board this time around.

The McLarens double-filled a sandwich of Renault cars to show that the French marque can expect to deliver good results this weekend.

WHAT'S HAPPENING AT HAAS?

Haas have looked like the best of the rest for much of 2018 so far, but Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean were right down at the bottom of the timesheets on Thursday, 16th and 18th quickest respectively.

Grosjean also has a three-place grid penalty to contend with so, unless we were subjected to a hoodwinking, the Frenchman seems highly unlikely to get off the mark for the season.

Magnussen admitted pre-race that Monaco's slow corners would test the Haas car's weaknesses - they look like failing so far...