Lewis Hamilton was the fastest driver around the streets of Monte-Carlo in the first free practice session of the Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen completed the top 3.
All eyes were on Jenson Button during his F1 comeback replacing Alonso, who will be racing at the Indy 500 this weekend. The Brit started the session about 11 seconds off the pace, but he improved his times on the soft tyre gradually as the session advanced.
During the first half of the session, the Toro Rossos and Ricciardo surprised with good times. Verstappen had a puncture which forced him to go back to the pits and lose quite a lot of track time. Bottas led ahead of Hamilton and Vettel. Räikkönen was once again quite far behind his teammate, about 8 tenths slower.
Hamilton topped the timesheets, 2 tenths ahead of Vettel and 3 ahead of Verstappen and Bottas. Ricciardo was 4 tenths off on P5. Kvyat, Räikkönen, Pérez, Sainz and Ocon completed the top 10. Both Toro Rossos set their fastest lap with the supersoft compound, while the other drivers used the ultrasoft. Button was finally 15th, less than 2 tenths behind his teammate Vandoorne.