The most glamorous appointment of the championship has officially begun with the start of the first free practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix. After the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the Imola circuit, the challenge moves to the streets of the principality, with teams on the field appearing quite balanced between Ferrari, Red Bull, and McLaren. The competition has already heated up in the Monaco FP1; let’s discover what happened in our summary.
Track activity commenced as soon as the green flag signaled the opening of the pit lane. All drivers immediately hit the principality’s streets to gain as much confidence as possible among the track’s walls. Almost all drivers took to the track with the white tire to begin an extensive long-run understanding of the track. In the initial minutes of activity, there was a constant change in positions at the top of the leaderboard, thanks in part to the significant evolution of the track. Indeed, heavy rain fell yesterday, preventing proper rubbering of the track during the sessions of the lower categories.
After the first 10 minutes of activity, we find Charles Leclerc, followed by about 3 tenths by his Maranello teammate, leading the two McLaren cars and Max Verstappen. Shortly after, Max Verstappen raised the bar, but the two Ferrari single-seaters immediately responded with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz respectively trailing the Dutchman by 36 and 39 thousandths.
Teams interpreted the first part of the session differently, with some opting for an aggressive approach and others a bit more conservative. Lap after lap, the drivers raised the performance bar, with Charles Leclerc taking the lead with a time of 1:13.343 after the first 25 minutes of activity. From the onboard footage of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, we see a driver already pushing the limit, especially exiting the harbor chicane. After several attempts, Max Verstappen managed to improve his time, still remaining just over three tenths behind Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari. However, he was soon displaced by Lewis Hamilton, on the same yellow tire, who got within a little over a tenth of Charles Leclerc.
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In the second half of the session, the learning phase of the track with the red tire began. The first to set a great reference was George Russell with 1:12.285, followed by Oscar Piastri just over three tenths behind. Ferrari opted for a different strategy, starting their push lap program with the yellow tire. With 20 minutes remaining, Oscar Piastri topped the leaderboard, despite some understeer issues in the slower corners. On his first attempt with the yellow tire, Charles Leclerc moved up to third place, less than 2 tenths off McLaren’s reference.
In the last 15 minutes, lap times continued to drop. Lewis Hamilton, on his third attempt, set the benchmark at 1:12.169 with the yellow compound, which performed admirably during the session. However, track activity was interrupted shortly after by a red flag caused by a Sauber at Saint Devote, which hit the outer barriers.
After the red flag, several drivers resumed track activity for a short race pace simulation. Charles Leclerc also returned to the track after the team examined the damage to the underbody from hitting the Sauber’s endplate head-on.
Most drivers were just doing a practice start on the grid in preparation for Sunday’s race after the final moments of FP1. That was a fascinating session and the pre-event thoughts that Red Bull would be on the backfoot are seemingly coming true.
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