Daniel Ricciardo
Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo blitzed the time sheets in second free practice at the 2016 Monaco GP on Thursday (26 May) Getty

Daniel Ricciardo set a blistering time in FP2 on Thursday (26 May) to make it clear that the Red Bulls will be challenging the Mercedes duo for pole position on Saturday for the first time this season. The Australian driver was six tenths quicker than Lewis Hamilton in second place, which was a real eye-opener for everyone on the grid. The Red Bull team are running an upgraded package on Ricciardo's car, but did not expect to be so much ahead of the championship leading team.

Nico Rosberg was in third place, with Max Verstappen in fourth and Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat rounding out the top five. The best Ferrari was Kimi Raikkonen, who was in seventh place while Sebastian Vettel had to settle for ninth with the Prancing Horse clearly struggling for pace. The four-time World champion had a difficult time in the car suffering a spin and a brush against the barrier at Turn 1.

The teams will have Friday to work on their cars, with Vettel confident that Ferrari will be higher up the grid on Saturday. It was a start-stop session in FP1 and 2 with a number of drivers suffering off track moments with Felipe Massa, Rio Hariyanto and Kevin Magnussen going into the barriers. Rain is expected for Sunday, but qualifying will be dry and as they say, in Monaco 'qualifying on pole is half the race won'.

Where to watch live

The third free practice session begins on 28 May at 10am BST, while the qualifying session starts at 1pm BST. Sky Sports F1 and Sky Sports F1 HD will provide live coverage of both events in the UK.

Real-time internet updates are available on the Live Timing section of the sport's official website.

Top 10 results of the second practice session (FP2) from the Circuit de Monaco:

POS.DRIVERTIMEGAP
1DANIEL RICCIARDO1:14.607
2LEWIS HAMILTON1:15.213+0.606s
3NICO ROSBERG1:15.506+0.899s
4MAX VERSTAPPEN1:15.571+0.964s
5DANIIL KVYAT1:15.815+1.208s
6CARLOS SAINZ1:15.981+1.374s
7KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN1:16.040+1.433s
8SERGIO PEREZ1:16.120+1.513s
9SEBASTIAN VETTEL1:16.269+1.662s
10JENSON BUTTON1:16.325+1.718s