F1 Fanatic

Two-time Monaco winner Alonso was fastest in first practice

Fernando Alonso put Ferrari on top in the first practice session ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix.

But Red Bull showed they aren’t far off the pace, with Sebastian Vettel lapping within one tenth of a second of Alonso’s time.

The McLaren drivers exchanged fastest times in the early moment of practice before being pegged back by Felipe Massa’s Ferrari.

Fernando Alonso had a sideways moment at the Anthony Noghes corner early in the session. But when he came out later on he progressively moved his fastest time out of the reach of his rivals – ending up half a second faster than Robert Kubica.

The Red Bull drivers waited until the second half before getting down to business, as did the Force India drivers.

It wasn’t until the last ten minutes that Sebastian Vettel showed his hand, getting within a tenth of a second of Alonso’s time.

Karun Chandhok only managed six laps before spinning the HRT at Massenet. He touched the barrier and his session ended there.

Monaco Grand Prix
practice in pictures

Another driver who did very little running was Nico Rosberg, who spent much of the session in the pits while the Mercedes mechanics worked on a problem on his car.

The track was busiest at the end of the session with 22 cars lapping at once, giving a taste of the difficulties to come in qualifying.

Kamui Kobayashi ended his first F1 practice at Monaco limping into the pits with bent suspension and no front wing. The damage was caused when he cut across the kerb at the swimming pool and hit the barrier on the outside of the corner.

2010 Monaco Grand Prix

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• 2010 Monaco Grand Prix – the complete F1 Fanatic race weekend review
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• This time Vettel denies Webber a perfect result (Monaco GP stats and facts)
• Alonso’s mammoth stint and McLaren’s smart move
• Monaco Grand Prix fastest laps
• The FIA’s badly-written rules leave Formula 1 looking stupid once again
• Monaco Grand Prix in pictures