Monaco: Alonso fastest in first practice

Fernando Alonso made an early statement of intent for the eagerly awaited Monaco Grand Prix weekend, setting the fastest time of a curtailed first session of free practice.

Fernando Alonso has a special golden helmet design in Monaco

Alonso clocked a quickest effort of 1:16.265 to finish the session ahead of Romain Grosjean and Sergio Perez. But the session was red flagged with eight minutes remaining after Heikki Kovalainen's Renault engine gave out in a plume of smoke in the tunnel, leaving a trail of oil on the racing line.

Lewis Hamilton was fourth quickest at the end of the session with Pastor Maldonado fifth as two of the favourites for the weekend showed early promise. The top five were separated by just half a second, but with drivers finding more and more time as their confidence grows there could have been further challenges to Alonso's time but for the early stoppage.

As soon as the clock had ticked over to 10am local time, cars flooded out onto a famous Monaco circuit bathed in sunshine, with only Jenson Button remaining in the pits. He finally ventured out 15 minutes into the session but complained of a lack of visibility as his team experimented with a new cockpit position in evaluating a higher chassis for next season. McLaren also opted to run a new front wing end plate, using a sensor to test loading on the front of the chassis.

With the track temperature reaching 28 degrees, Jean-Eric Vergne was the first driver to dial in competitive lap times, pushing hard enough to just avoid hitting the barrier on the final corner. As the big hitters began to get a feel for the circuit, so Vergne's spell at the top ended, first Romain Grosjean then Michael Schumacher bettering the mark.

Grosjean was strong throughout the session, but the same could not be said for his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen who failed to set a time after reporting problems with his steering after his installation lap.

While Alonso looked settled and controlled throughout each of his 22 laps, Felipe Massa was less so. Despite being quick and setting the sixth fastest time, Massa appeared to be slightly ragged and fighting the Ferrari much more than his team-mate.

The session saw its share of incident, Narain Karthikeyan out braking himself and disappearing down the escape road at Mirabeau, Mark Webber cutting the Nouvelle Chicane and Massa inexplicably kissing the armco approaching Tabac. Schumacher was also forced to return to the pit after a fault in his front wing saw it dragging along the circuit.

Results:


1. Fernando Alonso 1m 16.265s
2. Romain Grosjean 1m 16.630s
3. Sergio Perez         1m 16.711s
4. Lewis Hamilton         1m 16.747s
5. Pastor Maldonado 1m 16.760s
6. Felipe Massa         1m 16.843s
7. Kamui Kobayashi  1m 17.038s
8. Jenson Button          1m 17.190s
9. Sebastian Vettel  1m 17.222s
10. Nico Rosberg          1m 17.261s
11. Michael Schumacher  1m 17.413s
12. Nico Hulkenberg  1m 17.631s
13. Mark Webber          1m 18.106s
14. Jean-Eric Vergne  1m 18.209s
15. Daniel Ricciardo  1m 18.252s
16. Paul di Resta          1m 18.302s
17. Bruno Senna          1m 18.617s
18. Heikki Kovalainen  1m 19.039s
19. Vitaly Petrov          1m 19.341s
20. Narain Karthikeyan   1m 20.838s
21. Charles Pic           1m 20.895s
22. Timo Glock           1m 21.638s
23. Pedro de la Rosa   1m 22.423s
24. Kimi Raikkonen     No time