Hamilton heads tight field in Monaco FP1

Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheet at the end of Thursday’s first free practice session, edging out Sebastain Vettel by just 0.196s.

The Mercedes drivers’ fastest lap was quicker than last year’s pole while the top five drivers were covered by just under half a second.

Vettel’s Ferrari suffered a slight mishap early on when he tapped the barriers while P3’s Max Verstappen endured a puncture.

Other than that it was an incident-free session – a rare occurrence at Monaco – save for Nico Hulkenberg and Marcus Ericsson who were hit by technical gremlins which prevented any meaningful running.

Daniel Ricciardo clocked in with 45 laps under his belt and the fifth fastest time, right behind Valtteri Bottas’ Mercedes.

Meanwhile, Jenson Button’s return to the fray yielded P14, with the McLaren driver just fractionally down on team mate Stoffel Vandoorne.

The 2009 victor’s time was just 1.529s slower than Lewis Hamitlon’s fastest lap, an indication of the level of competition of the field in the Principality.

Free practice 1 results

1
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
1:13.425s

40

2
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
1:13.621s
+ 0.196s

34

3
Max Verstappen
Red Bull
1:13.771s
+ 0.346s

32

4
Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes
1:13.791s
+ 0.366s

40

5
Daniel Ricciardo
Red Bull
1:13.854s
+ 0.429s

45

6
Daniil Kvyat
Toro Rosso
1:14.111s
+ 0.686s

42

7
Kimi Räikkönen
Ferrari
1:14.164s
+ 0.739s

37

8
Sergio Pérez
Force India
1:14.201s
+ 0.776s

32

9
Carlos Sainz
Toro Rosso
1:14.333s
+ 0.908s

39

10
Esteban Ocon
Force India
1:14.425s
+ 1.000s

39

11
Felipe Massa
Williams
1:14.617s
+ 1.192s

37

12
Stoffel Vandoorne
McLaren
1:14.813s
+ 1.388s

38

13
Kevin Magnussen
Haas
1:14.870s
+ 1.445s

34

14
Jenson Button
McLaren
1:14.954s
+ 1.529s

35

15
Romain Grosjean
Haas
1:15.321s
+ 1.896s

33

16
Lance Stroll
Williams
1:15.595s
+ 2.170s

44

17
Jolyon Palmer
Renault
1:15.949s
+ 2.524s

42

18
Pascal Wehrlein
Sauber
1:16.258s
+ 2.833s

33

19
Nico Hülkenberg
Renault

3

20
Marcus Ericsson
Sauber

3

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