F1 gets underway for the first street circuit of the season for the 74th edition of the Grand Prix de Monaco. Lewis Hamilton lead the session ahead of Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel in a session filled by incidents.
Esteban Gutierrez was the first driver to go on track for an outlap, as he did not race on this track since 2014. Lots of rookies started an early session, especially Pascal Wehrlein who discovered this track for the first time.
Both Mercedes drivers were the first ones to use ultra-soft tyres which can be used for the first time of the season here. Nico Rosberg was the first one to mark a reference laptime with a 1:21.712. Both drivers started with race simulations, graining the track lap after lap. After seven laps completed, Lewis Hamilton was still able to go faster with his tyres, threatening Sebastian Vettel’s track record set in 2011.
The first yellow flag of the day came from Felipe Massa after he hit the wall at Sainte Dévote and after three minutes under Virtual Safety Car, the session went green again.
After 30 minutes, Hamilton was fastest with a 1:16.588 ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, Max Verstappen, Daniill Kvyat and Robserg.
At mid-session, Hamilton had two successive locks-up at le Port and Sainte Dévote where he went straight into the run-off area. With less than 30 minutes to go, Gutierrez stopped his car before the tunnel, complaining about something going “really wrong on the engine”. A few minutes later, Palmer hit the wall at Tabac, breaking the rear right suspension and implying a virtual safety car outing to evacuate the debris. Nasr and Kvyat also went in the run-off area at Sainte Dévote, and Valtteri Bottas was not far from hitting the wall in the tunnel.
With five minutes to go, Roberg, drove on a lose drain cover and punctured his rear-left tyre. Jenson Button, right behind him, drove on it as well and punctured his front-right tyre. The debris and the track situation wrapped the session with a red flag.
Lewis Hamilton ends this first free-practice session in the lead with a 1:15.537 laptime, 0.101s ahead of Nico Rosberg. Sebastian Vettel is third ahead Daniel Ricciardo, Max Verstappen, Daniil Kvyat, Nico Hülkenberg, Sergio Perez, Kimi Raikkonen and Carlos Sainz Jr.
