@LewisHamilton leads @Max33Verstappen in FP1. #F1 #MonacoGP

Championship leader Lewis Hamilton topped the time-sheets in the opening practice session at the Monaco Grand Prix, leading Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by just 0.059 seconds as the latter split the Mercedes pairing.

Hamilton and Silver Arrows team-mate Valtteri Bottas remained most of FP1 in it’s familiar one-two positions before Verstappen sandwiched the duo in the latter stages of the 90 minute session.

Times were dropping in fast succession in the opening 30 minutes as the drivers started acclimatising to the streets of Monte Carlo but the two Mercedes F1 W10 EQ Power+ machines quickly took the lead to grab first and second places after their first run.

While Hamilton and Bottas were closely matched, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was only a tenth behind, with the Briton emerging from the pits on the same set of C5 soft rubber and increased his lead with a 1:12.932.

Bottas, Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel all beat Hamilton’s earlier benchmark as they put on fresh sets of softs, but the latter responded immediately and moved back to the top, switching spots for first in the order with Bottas before planting the best lap of a 1:12.106.

As rivals Mercedes and Ferrari then focused on long runs, Hamilton’s time remained unbeaten until the chequered flag was waved.

Bottas, despite only being 0,072 slower than his Mercedes team-mate, was relegated to third by Verstappen.

The Dutchman took his Honda-powered RB15 down into the run off at Mirabeau after his run on fresher soft compounds, and needed help from the marshals to reverse and continue on, as Verstappen stepped up his pace to snatch second on the time-sheets.

Home Grand Prix hero Leclerc was the quickest Ferrari in fourth place and ahead of team-mate Vettel who rounded out the top five.

The other Red Bull of Pierre Gasly, caught a nasty slide at the swimming pool section and wound up in sixth place with ten minutes remining on the clock and ended up a second off of team-mate Verstappen’s best effort.

Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg was the best of the rest in seventh whilst team-mate Daniel Ricciardo ended opening practice in 11th.

Haas F1 Team’s session was compromised due to radio and telemetry problems and received blag flags for both it’s entries on their opening runs as they could not communicate with them.

Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean returned to the track with 20 minutes remaining as the former came just 0.005 seconds behind the aforementioned Hulkenberg in eighth while the latter came behind Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen in tenth place.

The other Alfa Romeo Racing entry of Antonio Giovinazzi was 12th on the time-sheets and ahead of the two Honda-powered Toro Rosso STR14’s of Daniil Kvyat and Alexander Albon who were 13th and 14th respectively as the Faenza-based squad were the only team running the mediums in the second 45 minutes of the session.

McLaren’s Lando Norris was 15th and in-front of Racing Point’s Sergio Perez who took 16th.

The two ROKiT Williams Racing FW42’s followed in 17th and 18th respectively with George Russell leading Robert Kubica as the latter went off with 30 minutes remaining and ending his session early.

Kubica spun at the exit of Casino Square and tapped his front wing against the barrier, as the Polish driver returned to the pits and did not return to the track afterwards.

The other Racing Point of Lance Stroll was a low 19th and ahead of McLaren’s Carlos Sainz who was unable to set a lap time and was stuck with an electronics issue.

You can read the full Free Practice 1 Classification at the link courtesy of Formula1.com: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2019/races/1005/monaco/practice-1.html