Lewis Hamilton topped the first free practice session in Monaco, closely followed by Oscar Piastri and George Russell.
The most glamorous Grand Prix on the calendar started with some uncertainty regarding the weather. That wasn’t the only uncertainty around the paddock, as both Red Bull, McLaren, and Ferrari seemed able to win the race.
Getting comfortable around Monaco isn’t easy, and that’s why everybody hit the track immediately and tried to do as many laps as possible.
Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen were already fighting against each other in terms of lap time. Then, both McLarens, Carlos Sainz, and even Yuki Tsunoda also joined the battle.
The two Ferraris were using hard tires, and Verstappen was on mediums, just like Piastri and Tsunoda. Meanwhile, Norris was also on hards.
A few drivers went wide in turn one, causing a yellow flag, but with 30 minutes to go the session was going smoothly.
Leclerc then put a bigger gap between himself and P2, going almost 0.6s faster. A few drivers like Piastri and George Russell fitted soft tires. The latter went fastest, 0.323s ahead of the Aussie driver.
Lewis Hamilton got really close to his teammate on soft tires, too. Then, Piastri took the lead of the session, just 0.097s ahead of Russell. Leclerc jumped back to P3, 0.199s behind the McLaren driver, but the Monégasque was using medium tires instead of softs.
Norris then beat Leclerc by just 0.001s. Meanwhile, Hamilton went first-fastest, 0.029s ahead of everybody. The session was then red-flagged as there was debris in the middle of the track since Guanyu Zhou hit the wall in turn 1. The debris was hit by Leclerc, who damaged the floor.
Ferrari’s mechanics worked a bit on the floor and sent Leclerc out. Meanwhile, Perez said he suffered a puncture and was forced to pit. Verstappen wasn’t very pleased with his car and both he and his teammate were outside the top 10, in P11 and P12 respectively.