Charles Leclerc led a Ferrari one-two in first practice for the Monaco Grand Prix, setting a 13.978 to put himself a quarter of a second faster than his teammate Lewis Hamilton. Ferrari has been tipped as the team to beat this weekend because of how strong they have looked in the slow-speed technical corners at the opening five rounds.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t all plain sailing for Leclerc, who had to bail at Mirabeau Haute (Turn Five). He then went fastest before improving that first benchmark by a second when he set the fastest time of FP1.<\/p>\n
The Ferrari duo put themselves a quarter of a second clear of Max Verstappen, although the Red Bull driver was half a second off the outright pace set by Leclerc. As he went nearly half a tenth faster than championship leader Kimi Antonnelli, with the second Mercedes of George Russell nearly half a second behind.<\/p>\n
Mercedes has claimed every Sprint and Grand Prix pole and race win so far this season, but the feeling is that they will have their work cut out to extend those runs this weekend. Verstappen also outpacing them suggests this could be a harder task for them to keep their record going.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t all plain sailing for Red Bull as Verstappen\u2019s teammate Isack Hadjar lost control through the Swimming Pool chicane exit, losing his rear and spinning into the barriers, bringing out the red flag.<\/p>\n
Hadjar wasn\u2019t the only one to find the barriers; Fernando Alonso made contact as he ran down the hill to the Nouvelle Chicane, the most experienced driver of all time, losing his front wing as it shattered over the track.<\/p>\n
Lando Norris had avoided a similar incident minutes before when he successfully corrected a slide out of the corner; the McLaren driver instead clattered over the kerbs and avoided the barriers.<\/p>\n
The Spaniard was at least able to continue and return his damaged car to the pits. Aston Martin said the incident was not caused by driver error, adding that the car is difficult to drive and the brakes locked.<\/p>\n
Both incidents caused brief red flags in a session that saw numerous drivers find the run-off areas, including pacesetter Leclerc twice and Hamilton once.<\/p>\n
Norris put his McLaren sixth, last year\u2019s winner and champion was three tenths behind Russell as the Audi of Nico Hulkenberg split the two McLarens, after he went nearly a quarter of a second faster than Oscar Piastri. In turn, the Melbournian split the Audis as he went nearly two tenths faster than Gabriel Bortoletto.<\/p>\n
Pierre Gasly put his Alpine three-quarters of a tenth behind the Brazilian, as he completed the top ten. But Williams missed out by a tenth and a half as Alex Albon went half a tenth faster than his teammate Carlos Sainz, while Hadjar\u2019s contact with the barriers left him a tenth behind.<\/p>\n
Sergio Perez put his Cadillac two hundredths faster than the Alpine of Franco Colapinto, followed by the Haas duo. Ollie Bearman is going four hundredths faster than his teammate Esteban Ocon, though the Englishman complained that he lost time after being backed up by his teammate.<\/p>\n
Both Racing Bulls complained about the steering lock at the Hotel Hairpin, the tightest turning circles and the slowest corner of the season. Arvid Lindblad four hundredths faster than teammate Liam Lawson, but the English-Swede is under investigation for impeding Piastri.<\/p>\n
Despite his contact with the barriers, Alonso finished twentieth as he went three-quarters of a second faster than Valtteri Bottas. The Cadillac splitting the Aston Martins as he went, nearly a tenth faster than Lance Stroll.<\/p>\n
Charles Leclerc led a Ferrari one-two in first practice for the Monaco Grand Prix, setting a 13.978 to put himself a quarter of a second faster than his teammate Lewis Hamilton. Ferrari has been tipped as the team to beat this weekend because of how strong they have looked in the slow-speed technical corners at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2339,390,418,709,766,1283,1362,1363,1364,1367,1570,1571,1637,2344,1642,1843],"class_list":["post-16022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-race-reports","tag-2339","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-circuit-de-monaco","tag-ferrari","tag-fp1","tag-max-verstappen","tag-monaco","tag-monaco-gp","tag-monaco-grand-prix","tag-monte-carlo","tag-practice-one","tag-practice-report","tag-red-bull","tag-red-bull-ford","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-lewis-hamilton"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16023,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16022\/revisions\/16023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}