Ideal laps are a theoretical measure of how fast a driver could have gone over a lap created by combining their best sector times over a session. Comparing these to their actual best recorded lap time can provide insight into how much time a driver is yet to find on track, and where the relative strengths of each driver/car lies around the lap.

Based on data from free practice 2 on Friday in the Principality, Charles Leclerc was not only quickest with his actual lap but also his theoretical ideal lap. Even so, there was still an extra 0.111s between his ideal and actual lap times – indicating there was more to find out there had he hooked it up in all sectors.

This is in contrast to his closest competition in terms of actual and theoretical time – Oscar Piastri. Piastri had a delta of just 0.045s from his ideal to actual time, indicating that he was perhaps finding the maximum in FP2.

For his teammate Norris, the delta was over 0.3s, with most of this time left to be found in sector 1. In fact, this is where the majority of drivers left time on the table on their quickest timed lap versus their fastest time through that sector, but Norris had the largest delta here of the front runners.

Interestingly, Norris was the driver with the biggest rift between his ideal and actual quickest lap time in FP2 as more time was lost in sector 3 too.

On the other hand, drivers like Lawson, Albon, Hadjar and Verstappen all matched their ideal lap times with their actual ones suggesting they were matching the limit of performance from their cars in that session.

So who would have been quickest if they’d hooked it all together over a single lap?

Leclerc was still out front based on his ideal lap time, as he was with his actual in the representative FP2. While Norris had the most time to find, had he found this, he still would have been 0.132s off the pace set by Leclerc.

It suggests that Ferrari, but especially Leclerc, have found something special in Monaco this weekend as they use their car’s ability to ride the kerbs to their favour. Though over the times on the board there was less than a tenth in it over each sector to Piastri’s P2 time, Leclerc’s quickest sectors of the FP2 session pointed to him having found the advantage mostly in sector 1 where his fastest time was 0.158s ahead of Piastri’s.

While it then swung back away from him in sector 2 by 0.114s, Leclerc found an additional 0.06s in sector 3 over the McLaren.

It points to a nip and tuck qualifying session later with advantages being exchanged over each sector between the Ferrari and the McLaren. Of course it’s likely the Red Bull of Verstappen will be back in the mix after ranking lower on the timesheets in FP2 – something that was rectified by FP3 where he was quickest for much of the session.