Hamilton tops practice 1 in Monaco

Lewis Hamilton

Championship rivals Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel picked up where they left off in Spain during Thursday morning’s opening session in Monaco, as the former headed the latter by the smallest of margins. In a relatively drama-free session, Hamilton lapped his Mercedes 0.196s quicker than Vettel’s Ferrari, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen a further tenth and a half back in third place.

Valtteri Bottas was fourth in the second Silver Arrow, while the other Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo was fifth, and the only other driver within half a second of Hamilton’s benchmark.

Running supersoft tires rather than the more popular ultrasofts, Daniil Kvyat was an excellent sixth for Toro Rosso, three places ahead of team mate Carlos Sainz who also stuck to the red-marked rubber.

Between them were Kimi Raikkonen, whose Ferrari was spotted kissing the barriers several times at the Swimming Pool, and Sergio Perez’s Force India. The top ten was rounded out by the other VJM10 of Esteban Ocon.

Jenson Button finished 14th on his return to action with McLaren, focusing primarily on longer runs and getting acclimated with the MCL32.

But while Button racked up the laps, Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg and Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson managed just three apiece as both hit technical issues and failed to set a lap time.

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