Formula 1 News: Hamilton tops opening practice for Monaco GP

Before the rain sprinkles slowed the cars during the last 10 minutes of the session, Lewis Hamilton turned a lap of 1m12.169s in his Mercedes to top Practice 1 for the 2024 Monaco GP. On a track that is still rubbering in, Hamilton was 0.029s faster than Oscar Piastri’s McLaren

–by Mark Cipolloni–

All the top cars set their fast time on the Pirelli Soft Red Tires, except Max Verstappen down in 11th and Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari in 5th – both saving a set of soft reds for when it counts and working on race setups.

George Russell was 3rd in the 2nd Mercedes, 0.126s behind Hamilton.

Lando Norris was 4th quick in the #4 McLaren, 0.227s behind, while Leclerc rounded out the top-5 for Ferrari, 0.228s behind on the medium tires.

Sergio Perez broke his front tire rim, so looks like he kissed the walls somewhere.

Verstappen ran two sets of mediums tires in that session, Perez a set of the mediums and one of the hards. They seemed to be working on set-up and longer runs, but we might see some quick laps from them a little later on here.

Pierre Gasly lost most of the session with a turbo wastegate issue

So, Hamilton tops FP1 for Mercedes having run the soft tires. He completed 35 laps, the car looks pretty good here, and they do tend to go well through the slower speed stuff. Cause for optimism?! Let’s see how FP2 goes a little later on.

There’s always time for some drama here, and it comes to balking another car. Leclerc balked a rather irate Sargeant. Leclerc immediately apologized on the radio, confessing that he just couldn’t see the dark colored Williams in the tunnel.

2024 Monaco GP Practice 1 Results