Monaco Grand Prix FP1: Hamilton leads, but Ferrari and Red Bull save soft tires

Lewis Hamilton posted the fastest lap in the opening free practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix, although neither Red Bull car used the softest compound tire during the session.

For drivers, the Monaco weekend is all about exploring the limits of their cars against the walls and building confidence in running close to them across the three practice sessions.

In the first 30 minutes, local hero Charles Leclerc set the pace with a 1m13.132s, only for Hamilton to slot into second place, 0.165s adrift, and Max Verstappen to be third, 0.344s off the pace. However, the Monegasque’s time was set on the hard tire, while the Mercedes and Red Bull drivers used mediums.

AlphaTauri reported that Pierre Gasly would miss the remainder of the session due to a need to fix an exhaust valve issue, having completed just six laps at that point.

Several drivers switched to soft tires for qualifying simulations, with Oscar Piastri briefly topping the times before George Russell moved to P1 with a 1m12.295s on the same compound. The Australian responded immediately with a 1m12.198s, only for Hamilton, also on softs, to post a 1m12.169s on his second flying lap, putting him atop the timesheets ahead of Piastri.

With less than 15 minutes remaining, Guanyu Zhou lost his front-left winglet when he brushed the barrier at Turn 1 on his second flying lap on softs. Leclerc picked up some debris from the incident, prompting a brief red flag for the cleanup.

When the session resumed with around five minutes left, the top three remained unchanged. Lando Norris took fourth, around 0.2s off his McLaren teammate. Leclerc wound up fifth but without using softs. Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were sixth and seventh for Aston Martin, followed by Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo in the RBs. Carlos Sainz made it into the top 10 for Ferrari, also without running the soft compound.

Red Bull also saved its soft tires for later in the weekend, with Verstappen setting his personal best on mediums for P11 and Sergio Perez following in 12th.

Zhou, who had been 19th after the first 30 minutes on hard tires with a 1m16.251s, improved to 1m14.570s on softs. In the final laps after the red flag, Zhou returned to the track but reported no DRS. The Chinese rookie ended the first session of the weekend in 19th, while his Sauber teammate Valtteri Bottas was 13th.