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



Lewis Hamilton posted the fastest lap in the opening practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix, although neither Red Bull nor Ferrari used the softest compound tyre during the session.

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

During the first 30 minutes, local hero Charles Leclerc set a benchmark time of 1 minute 13.132 seconds, only for Hamilton to slot into second place, 0.165 seconds adrift, with Max Verstappen a further 0.344 seconds behind in third. However, the Monegasque’s best was on the hard tyre, while the Mercedes and Red Bull drivers used mediums.

At that point, Alpine reported that Pierre Gasly would miss the rest of the session due to a need to fix an exhaust issue, having completed just six laps.

Several drivers switched to the soft tyre for qualifying simulations, with Oscar Piastri briefly topping the times before George Russell went quickest with a 1 minute 12.295-second lap on the same compound. The Australian responded immediately with a 1 minute 12.198-second effort. Later, Hamilton also took to the softs and on his second flying lap clocked a 1 minute 12.169 seconds to move to P1, displacing Piastri.

With less than 15 minutes remaining, Guanyu Zhou lost part of his front-left wing endplate after brushing the barrier on the uphill approach to Turn 1. As Leclerc drove through the incident site, debris from the Alfa Romeo got sucked under the Ferrari, prompting a brief red flag for the track to be cleared.

With around five minutes left in the session, running resumed, but the top three remained unchanged. Lando Norris ended up fourth, around 0.2 seconds off his McLaren teammate. Leclerc eventually finished fifth, but without using the soft tyre. Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were sixth and seventh for Aston Martin, followed by Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bulls. Carlos Sainz made it into the top 10 for Ferrari, also without utilising the soft tyre.

Red Bull also refrained from using the soft tyre in the latter stages, with Verstappen setting his personal best on mediums to end up 11th, ahead of Sergio Perez in 12th.

Zhou, who had been 19th after the first 30 minutes on the hard tyre with a 1 minute 16.251-second lap, improved to 1 minute 14.570 seconds on the softs. In the closing laps after the red flag, Zhou returned to the track but reported no DRS on his car. The Chinese rookie remained 19th at the end of the first session, while his Sauber teammate Valtteri Bottas was 13th.