Carlos Sainz claims the top spot in FP1 at the Monaco Grand Prix

Carlos Sainz finished on top of the rest of the grid in FP1 at the Monaco Grand Prix, with a lap time of 1:13.372. The Ferrari driver finished ahead of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton in a forever-changing timesheet throughout the hour.

There were two red flag’s in the session, with Alex Albon and Nico Hulkenberg colliding with the barriers. The Williams driver hit the barrier at Saint Devote with three minutes to go, causing an end to the session, whilst the Haas driver only grazed one at the Nouvelle chicane, which burst his left rear. However, the German was able to limp back to the pits.

The practice session was 60 minutes of complaining it seemed. From the get-go, Max Verstappen and George Russell were very vocal on team radio, stating their issues with their car around the Monaco circuit. The two were in the pits for a long period of time as well as the team made changes, but Verstappen was able to make the most out of the changes compared to Russell.

The Dutchman flirted with the top three at points but ended up finishing in sixth, whilst the Brit struggled majorly compared to his teammate, Hamilton, and finished outside the top 10, in 15th place.

Williams’ rookie Logan Sargeant also had to complain, but this was down to a problem with his car as he was coming through the tunnel section. Luckily, the American was able to creep around Sectors 2 and 3 and return to the pits.

As expected, there was a lot of traffic across the whole circuit, and there were a few close calls. Valtteri Bottas almost collided with a Red Bull near the middle point of FP1 and a few more drivers stated their frustration on the team radio.

Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc battled to slide into the top 10, but small driver errors meant that potential top-setting laps were aborted, and the two finished in fourth and fifth respectively.

Lando Norris, Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll rounded out the top 10, but those outside, only missed out by a minimal amount of time.