Hamilton edges Verstappen in opening Monaco practice
Lewis Hamilton headed the field in opening practice for the Monaco Grand Prix on Thursday, narrowly beating Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
Formula 1 drivers' championship leader Hamilton turned in a best lap time of 1m12.106s to finish quickest by just 0.059 seconds, with Verstappen managing to break up the Mercedes drivers at the front of the pack.
Lewis Hamilton headed the field in opening practice for the Monaco Grand Prix on Thursday, narrowly beating Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
Formula 1 drivers' championship leader Hamilton turned in a best lap time of 1m12.106s to finish quickest by just 0.059 seconds, with Verstappen managing to break up the Mercedes drivers at the front of the pack.
Hamilton and teammate Valtteri Bottas had spent the early part of FP1 trading fastest laps at the top of the timesheets, but Verstappen managed to improve for Red Bull to rise up to second place in the final 30 minutes of the session.
Bottas was left to settle for third, 0.072 seconds back from Hamilton in the sister Mercedes W10.
Ferrari struggled to put up much of a fight at the front, with Charles Leclerc leading its charge in fourth place, three-tenths of a second back from Hamilton.
Sebastian Vettel was even further adrift, ending the session 0.7 seconds off the benchmark time in fifth place.
Pierre Gasly took sixth for Red Bull ahead of Renault's Nico Hulkenberg and Haas driver Kevin Magnussen, the latter recovering from an early black flag to finish eighth overall.
Both Magnussen and fellow Haas driver Romain Grosjean was shown the black flag due to a radio failure, with the team unable to inform them to return to the pits, prompting the stewards to step in.
Kimi Raikkonen took ninth for Alfa Romeo, with Grosjean rounding out the top 10.
The session was interrupted only by the usual smattering of yellow flags in Mono for various runs off at Turn 1, although a spin for Robert Kubica saw him clip the barrier, damaging his front wing.
