Hamilton tops briefly red-flagged FP1

The Briton reached the peak of the FP1 times by 0.029s over McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, as the top five were all within a quarter of a second in this weekend’s opening timed session at the Monaco circuit.

Hamilton’s lap was succeeded by a red flag called for debris produced at Turn 1 by Zhou Guanyu, who survived a brush with the barrier despite losing fragments of front wing.

Continuous running defined the opening 20 minutes as the drivers sought to build their confidence around the Monaco circuit, with most of the field circulating on the hard tyres. 

The times thus began to fall promptly; Oscar Piastri was on top after the opening set of timed laps with a 1m18.002s on a set of mediums, but the Monte-Carlo roads soon rubbered in and the seconds began to fall away. 

After about 15 minutes of running, Max Verstappen had brought the benchmark down to a 1m13.974s – also on mediums.

Lando Norris subsequently emerged at the top on hard tyres, going 0.04s faster than Verstappen, before Ferrari laid down a marker with Charles Leclerc – the Monaco local grabbed a 1m13.343s on the hardest compound of Pirelli tyre to sit at the top.

He continued to find time to set a 1m13.132s, closing out the top times on the suite of harder tyre compounds, before Piastri returned to the top of the order with a 1m12.618s on the soft tyres.

George Russell then eclipsed the McLaren driver with a 1m12.295s, and was joined in the top two positions by team-mate Hamilton, before Piastri found more time on his next run to grab a 1m12.198s.

Hamilton proceeded to collect a 1m12.169s on his next tour on the soft tyres, before the session was suspended for a peppering of debris into Turn 1: Zhou Guanyu got slightly wayward on the entry to Sainte Devote and knocked off a portion of his front wing. The endplate became lodged underneath Leclerc’s Ferrari.

The debris was swiftly cleared and 10 minutes remained on the clock when the session resumed, but there were no further improvements to Hamilton’s overall lap.

Russell was third fastest, 0.126s shy of Hamilton’s ultimate time, while Norris and Leclerc were separated by just 0.001s behind him. Fernando Alonso was sixth, 0.6s off of the best lap of the session, accosted by Aston Martin team-mate Lance Stroll and RB’s Yuki Tsunoda.

Daniel Ricciardo and Carlos Sainz completed the top 10, as both Red Bulls…