Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFormula 1

Hamilton heads Verstappen in opening Monaco practice

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the opening practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix as he headed Toro Rosso's Max Verstappen by 0.15s.

The two Mercedes drivers were comfortably the busiest of the field in the opening session, with Hamilton completing 49 laps and setting the pace with a 1:18.750. While Hamilton's time came relatively early in the session, the track continued to improve after a damp start and Verstappen took second place on the chequered flag.

FP1 marked the first time the 17-year-old Toro Rosso rookie had driven at Monaco, but he was just 0.149s slower than the defending world champion in the opening session. Verstappen's late lap put him ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, with the Red Bull driver setting the fastest first sector as he threatened to snatch top spot, eventually falling 0.3s short.

Sebastian Vettel was fourth for Ferrari in a competitive opening session, ending up 0.384s slower than Hamilton, while Carlos Sainz made it two Toro Rossos in the top five as he also got within half a second of the quickest time. Vettel did have one close call with the barriers as he lost the rear of his Ferrari at Casino Square, sliding wide and coming within inches of making contact with the outside wall.

Pastor Maldonado was sixth for Lotus but one of a number of drivers to make use of the escape road at Turn 1, twice having to spin his car round to rejoin. However, he wasn't alone as Valtteri Bottas similarly made two trips in to the run-off area.

Both Red Bull drivers enjoyed strong starts to the weekend as Daniil Kvyat ended FP1 in seventh place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Nico Rosberg. It was a messy session for Rosberg, who hit the wall early on after getting out of shape at Tabac. The Mercedes only lightly tapped the barrier on the outside and was soon back out on track with no visible damage, but Rosberg ended up a second slower than his team-mate.

Felipe Massa rounded out the top ten for Williams ahead of the McLaren pair of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button. Alonso had been much higher in the standings but limited his running late in the session, while the opposite was true of Button who was confined to the garage for the opening hour as McLaren worked on his car.

Click here for a look at the technical updates brought by all the teams at the start of the European season

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:18.750	49
02	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:18.899	42
03	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:19.086	27
04	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:19.134	31
05	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:19.245	40
06	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus	1:19.454	35
07	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	1:19.520	33
08	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:19.679	31
09	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:19.762	47
10	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:19.766	32
11	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:19.791	28
12	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:20.202	15
13	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	1:20.274	34
14	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:20.619	35
15	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:20.784	34
16	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:20.857	24
17	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:20.917	36
18	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:21.219	25
19	Will Stevens	Manor	1:23.234	27
20	Roberto Merhi	Manor	1:23.404	31

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.