Lewis Hamilton made a rapid start to the Monaco Grand Prix weekend by edging out Formula 1 championship rival Sebastian Vettel at the top of the timesheets in first practice on Thursday morning.
Hamilton turned in a best lap of 1:13.425 on the ultra-soft tyre through a busy FP1 session, giving him a buffer of almost two-tenths of a second to Vettel in second place.
Mercedes and Ferrari were evenly-matched throughout the session once again, with Valtteri Bottas taking fourth after lapping three-tenths off team-mate Hamilton’s headline pace.
Red Bull displayed an impressive pace as Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo took third and fifth respectively, but the session was not completely smooth for the team. Verstappen was forced to sit out part of the running due to damage to the underside of his RB13 car, caused by running too aggressively over the kerbs.
Daniil Kvyat led Toro Rosso’s charge in FP1, finishing sixth as team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr. ended up ninth. Kimi Raikkonen was seventh in the sister Ferrari, while Force India drivers Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon filled out the top 10 in P8 and P10.
Jenson Button’s first session back in F1 saw him get to grips with the McLaren-Honda MCL32 car relatively quickly, finishing 14th and less than two-tenths off full-time team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne.
Concerns about the additional width of the 2017-spec F1 cars in Monaco proved unfounded in FP1 as the session went by without any major incident, but with drivers set to push the boundaries more as the weekend progresses, issues could yet arise.
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