Lewis Hamilton restored Mercedes to the top of the times in the third practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix – but Red Bull weren’t far behind.
Daniel Ricciardo ended the final hour of practice just five-hundredths of a second slower than Hamilton.
Their team mates were third and fourth. Nico Rosberg led the early part of the session when the drivers were running on the soft tyres, but was a tenth of a second off Hamilton on the super-soft tyres.
Sebastian Vettel was one of several drivers to lose a quick lap due to traffic on the short Monte-Carlo circuit. He ended up four-tenth of a second off the fastest time.
The field lined up in a neat order behind the top four, with Ferrari drivers Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen separated by a mere two hundredths of a second.
The two Force Indias were next, followed by the Toro Rosso pair and the Mercedes-powered McLaren and Williams duos.
Following the damp conditions during the last F1 session on Thursday, warm weather and sunny skies greeted the drivers on Saturday morning. However even with the warmer conditions drivers still found it took two or even three laps to find the best performance from the Pirelli’s softest rubber.
Combined practice times
Pos | Driver | Car | FP1 | FP2 | FP3 | Thur/Sat diff | Total laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1’18.271 | 1’18.901 | 1’16.758 | -1.513 | 71 |
2 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull-Renault | 1’18.506 | 1’19.779 | 1’16.808 | -1.698 | 74 |
3 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’18.303 | 1’22.862 | 1’16.874 | -1.429 | 66 |
4 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1’19.043 | 1’19.017 | 1’17.184 | -1.833 | 71 |
5 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1’18.930 | 1’18.482 | 1’17.428 | -1.054 | 68 |
6 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1’19.467 | 1’45.509 | 1’17.448 | -2.019 | 59 |
7 | Sergio Perez | Force India-Mercedes | 1’19.666 | 1’19.668 | 1’17.725 | -1.941 | 61 |
8 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India-Mercedes | 1’19.856 | 1’19.712 | 1’18.074 | -1.638 | 69 |
9 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso-Renault | 1’20.260 | 1’19.351 | 1’18.136 | -1.215 | 69 |
10 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso-Renault | 1’20.914 | 1’20.622 | 1’18.166 | -2.456 | 76 |
11 | Kevin Magnussen | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’19.789 | 1’20.230 | 1’18.249 | -1.54 | 73 |
12 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’20.033 | 1’19.721 | 1’18.262 | -1.459 | 72 |
13 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams-Mercedes | 1’19.494 | 1’19.421 | 1’18.430 | -0.991 | 71 |
14 | Felipe Massa | Williams-Mercedes | 1’20.517 | 1’20.394 | 1’18.542 | -1.852 | 63 |
15 | Adrian Sutil | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’20.736 | 1’20.811 | 1’18.598 | -2.138 | 60 |
16 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus-Renault | 1’20.207 | 1’21.700 | 1’18.776 | -1.431 | 65 |
17 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia-Ferrari | 1’21.310 | 1’21.937 | 1’18.872 | -2.438 | 63 |
18 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus-Renault | 1’20.241 | 1’20.977 | 1’19.118 | -1.123 | 73 |
19 | Esteban Gutierrez | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’20.118 | 1’21.467 | 1’19.149 | -0.969 | 69 |
20 | Kamui Kobayashi | Caterham-Renault | 1’22.492 | 1’21.924 | 1’20.271 | -1.653 | 76 |
21 | Max Chilton | Marussia-Ferrari | 1’25.817 | 1’22.683 | 1’20.394 | -2.289 | 45 |
22 | Marcus Ericsson | Caterham-Renault | 1’22.063 | 1’23.164 | 1’20.589 | -1.474 | 76 |
2014 Monaco Grand Prix
- New radio reveals Hamilton’s suspicions in Monaco
- Bianchi wins Driver of the Weekend with first points
- Second-highest score of the year so far for Monaco
- 2014 Monaco Grand Prix fans’ video gallery
- New leader after three perfect Monaco predictions
Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei
Force Maikel (@force-maikel)
24th May 2014, 11:10
This is going to be epic in qualifying, at least I hope so!
Ivan B (@njoydesign)
24th May 2014, 11:11
if Rosberg didn’t lose that time in 3rd sector, we would be having:
Mercedes
RB
Ferrari
FI
TR
McLaren
Williams
all in pairs))) how fascinating)))
Manohar shekhawat (@manohar)
24th May 2014, 11:35
i guess he backed off little bit when he saw delta is good, vettel had same thing.. not sure though
Sean Doyle (@spdoyle17)
24th May 2014, 11:17
Yeah. I wonder how many people are going to rethink their predictions. I know I did!
JCost (@jcost)
24th May 2014, 11:17
Rosberg looks very strong. Lewis is faster in middle sector but I don’t know if it will be enough to overcome his slower sectors 1,3.
Osvaldas31 (@osvaldas31)
24th May 2014, 11:22
This is going to be the most fascinating qualifying this year, unless Mercedes were hiding something. Odd not to have any crashes, especially with a lot twitchier cars this year. Maybe we’ll see some in qualifying. I’m predicting Rosberg on pole, though one of RBRs could be challenging him, witch would be awesome.
Cyclops_PL (@cyclops_pl)
24th May 2014, 11:24
So close. This will be a very exciting Saturday.
iAltair (@)
24th May 2014, 11:24
All front runners (Mercs and RBR drivers) were held up by traffic bar Ricciardo.
runforitscooby (@runforitscooby)
24th May 2014, 11:27
Ricciardo constantly impressing me. Really gunning for Bianci to get into q2!!
Sven (@crammond)
24th May 2014, 11:33
Me too. He get´s forgotten rather often, sadly, but he´s beating every teammate he had and he had a great pre-F1-career, so at some point he should really get a better drive. Making it to Q2 in Monaco might help that cause.
runforitscooby (@runforitscooby)
24th May 2014, 11:48
You’re right, watching Ric go from the back to the middle to the front in such a short time while Bianchi is kinda stuck back there, I hope he gets a chance from a better team soon!
Breno (@austus)
24th May 2014, 12:09
Unfortunately, it might be difficult for Ferrari to get him a midfield car, unless Sauber improves (and drops De Silvestro and Sirotkin).
Mayank (@mjf1fan)
24th May 2014, 11:30
Great lap by Bianchi. Splitting the Lotuses.
Will be the most exciting qualifying session of the season. Hopefully Rosberg will pip Hamilton for pole and probably victory tomorrow.
Ninjenius
24th May 2014, 11:32
On the combined practise times table: Thur/Sat diff ;)
John Mwesigwa (@sigwa)
24th May 2014, 11:33
I smell sc this weekend, and yellow flags!! This Monte Carlo track is “only for the strong”. we should write a movie about. I still go for 1.HAM,2.ROS.
Corrado (@)
24th May 2014, 11:37
RIC is trashing VET so bad ! Total domination !
zimkazimka (@zimkazimka)
24th May 2014, 11:45
But… but… what does it say about WEB?
Corrado (@)
24th May 2014, 12:03
Don’t know what you mean, but WEB wasn’t/isn’t a 1st class driver. No wonder VET dominated him. Yeah, this looks like WEB’s revenge. Anyway, it shows that VET is not a very complete driver if he’s struggling to get the best out of a “certain” F1 car.
juan fanger (@juan-fanger)
24th May 2014, 12:09
WEB was most competitive against VET when the EBD wasn’t working. Now it’s completely gone. I think it says most about VET.
juan fanger (@juan-fanger)
24th May 2014, 12:05
I’ve tipped RIC over VET but VET was going faster until held up in the last sector. Not sure. Who beats who in qualy will be important for the race as 4th on the grid will be very much at risk of getting out-dragged by ALO into the first corner.
(Obviously reckon Mercs then Bulls then Horsies)
Osvaldas31 (@osvaldas31)
24th May 2014, 12:34
@corrado-dub Wow, you make big conclusions from FP3. Better wait qualifying. I can assure, you Vettel will be much closer to Ricciardo, maybe will beat him.
David Margono (@woshidavid95)
24th May 2014, 12:45
Especially when Vettel had to back off… on paper for qualifying it’s 4-1 in Ricciardo’s favour but that doesn’t take into account Vettel’s misfortune in 2 of those qualifying sessions. Granted Ricciardo is certainly giving Vettel a hard time but ‘thrashing’ is a gross exaggeration.
Corrado (@)
24th May 2014, 14:10
Yeah… sure ! Latest news: RIC beat VET in Quali ! Also, Vettel seems to complain more than Button too ! Yeah, it’s really hard to swallow for a 4-time WDC to be dominated by a guy without even a win !
Anyway, come on, it’s not the start of the season anymore. RIC just seems to be 1st driver of the team.
Manohar shekhawat (@manohar)
24th May 2014, 11:40
this is just toe to toe between team mates.. can Nico defend his pride or lewis takes it away? for RBR my money is on vettel…and maybe kimi will show he is just good as alonso by beating him here!
RV (@zenren)
24th May 2014, 12:05
There isn’t much separating most team mates except FI among the top 7 teams. It could go either way in all those battles. Being Monaco, expect a lot of drivers to be unable to get 100% at the crucial time due to traffic.
Given how close Merc is to the rest here, even a small lockup from HAM or ROS in Q3 could see them in the middle of the top 10 which was not the case in previous races where they were practically assured a top 4 slot even if they aborted their final run. It’ll be interesting to see how they cope up with that pressure.