Renault F1 Team driver Nico Hulkenberg was best of the rest on Thursday morning in Monaco but his standards slipped in the afternoon.
Hulkenberg set an impressive time of 1:13:227 in Free Practice 1, finishing in seventh place in the session.
However, in Free Practice 2 he lagged behind the pack and dropped to a lowly sixteenth position with a time of 1:12:872.
With the traditional day of rest on Friday in Monaco, Hulkenberg is looking forward to resting and then pressing the reset button for qualifying on Saturday.
Free Practice 2 saw Hulkenberg run on the soft tyres but, after being caught up in the traffic on track, he insists there’s more to come from those tyres over the weekend and he said: “Today seemed to go OK, especially in the morning session.
“In the afternoon, on my short run on the Soft tyre, we were interrupted with a lot of traffic so there was certainly more left in that.”
Monaco is historically the most glamorous weekend on the calendar thanks to its twisty track which curves around the Principality’s luxury hotels, casinos and hugs the harbour.
And it’s no surprise that Hulkenberg is excited to take on the challenge of the street circuit once again.
He finished fifth with Force India in 2014 and Hulkenberg says there’s work to do if he is to replicate that sort of form.
Hulkenberg added, “Monaco is always interesting and different to the usual race weekend and it’s good to have a day off tomorrow to go through all the data and find the best set-up for the next couple of days.
“I’m feeling comfortable, the base feels good, but there’s work to do here and there.”
