The home hero led a surprise Ferrari 1-2 in Thursday afternoon’s second practice session around Monte Carlo’s iconic streets, finishing FP2 🐈0.112s cleaꦫr of teammate Carlos Sainz.

Leclerc, who was sidelined for virtually t🦩he whole of FP1 with a gearbox issue, ended up almost 0.4s clear of world champion Lewis♌ Hamilton’s Mercedes, while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was fourth.

Despite mౠaking a promising start to the weekend, Leclerc remains cautious about Ferrarꦛi’s chances of fighting for pole position and the win.

“I was quite surprised that it ended that way because here especially, it’s very important to do as many laps ꧂as we can,” Leclerc explained. “Unfortunatel🌃y with the issue I had in FP1, I had only done four laps.

"I felt quite at ease with th꧂e car in FP2. I managed to put that lap [together] and there is still a bit of margin.

“But on the other hand, I’m😼 sure that Red Bull and Mercedes have more ma🌃rgin than we have, so we shouldn’t get carried away too much.

“We have one day tomorrow to work hard, and let’s see where w🔥e 🦋end up.”

Asked if he is as optimistic as th🌱e times suggest, Leclerc replied: “Not yet, I want to wait until Saturday for now.

"It’s looking good, but for now it’s looking a little bit too good to believe it. Let’s wait and see, Saturday we will know exactly where we are in qualifying and w💟e will go from th♔ere for the race.”

Meanwhile, Sainz🍸 believes Ferrari 🌄is “very close to being a genuine threat” to Mercedes and Red Bull in Monaco.

“I think we need to wait until FP3, because thing🅰s change a lot from Thursday to Saturday here,” he added.

“There are some drivers that stand ba🦄ck a bit on Thursday, just because theyꦰ want to take it easy, and then suddenly on Saturday… Like Lewis always does, he’s super quick.

“So we will see. It’s nice to see at least that we are closer to🅰 the front, that we’re actually playing around tꦛhere at the front.

“It’s encouraging for the team, and there’s some positive signs that the car in the corner💯s is actually not that bad.”