Alonso leads the way in Monaco

Fernando Alonso was fastest after the first practice session ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix.

The Spaniard hustled his Ferrari through the streets to the fasest time just ahead of Vettel’s Red Bull and Kubica’s Renault. Only 0.089 seconds seperated the top three. They were followed by Vettel’s teammate Mark Webber in fourth. The Australian who dominated in Barcelona steadily improved throughout the session and set his fast times during a thirteen lap stint to end his session. 

The expectation ahead of this weekend was for traffic to play a massive part during practice and qualifying with the slower new teams expected to be mobile chicanes. First practice did very little to allay those fear as drivers tripped over one another consistently. The best example was Mark Webber exiting the chicane and staring into Bruno Senna’s gearbox. At the end of the lap Webber tried to open a gap in front for a flying lap and nearly clashed with Sebastian Buemi’s Toro Rosso in the last corner as the Swiss driver came upon the cruising Red Bull. 

Michael Schumacher added to a positive Spanish GP with the sixth fastest time ahead of Lewis Hamilton. The German looked confident in attacking the slower corners which proved to be his bane in the Chinese Grand Prix. He clearly has alot more confidence in the car now and will look to turn that confidence into a good weekend.

It wasn’t so rosy on the other side of the Mercedes garage with Nico Rosberg struggling with a car problems and having to spend half the session getting work done to solve mechanical problems. Rosberg knows that this is the most important weekend of his season, if he is beaten by Schumacher again the momentum of the team could continue to slide in the seven times world champions direction. Team principal Ross Brawn has said this will not be the case but Schumacher knows how to mould a team around him and it would not be the first time that he became Brawn’s lead driver.

Only two drivers, Karun Chandhok and Komai Kobayashi ended their sessions in the barriers. All the drivers know that any time lost in Monaco is impossible to catch up on and history shows that once you lose track time it severely hinders your pace for the rest of the weekend. 

Pos  Driver         Team                   Time

 1.  Alonso         Ferrari               1:15.927

 2.  Vettel          Red Bull-Renault      1:16.000  + 0.073 

 3.  Kubica         Renault               1:16.016  + 0.089

 4.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault      1:16.382  + 0.455 

 5.  Massa          Ferrari               1:16.517  + 0.590

 6.  Schumacher  Mercedes              1:16.589  + 0.662

 7.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      1:16.647  + 0.720

 8.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1:16.692  + 0.765

 9.  Sutil            Force India-Mercedes  1:16.805  + 0.878

10.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1:16.857  + 0.930

11.  Rosberg      Mercedes              1:17.149  + 1.222

12.  Barrichello   Williams-Cosworth     1:17.331  + 1.404

13.  Liuzzi          Force India-Mercedes  1:17.704  + 1.777

14.  Petrov         Renault               1:17.718  + 1.791

15.  Alguersuari  Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1:17.991  + 2.064

16.  Hulkenberg  Williams-Cosworth     1:18.397  + 2.470

17.  de la Rosa   Sauber-Ferrari        1:18.434  + 2.507

18.  Kobayashi   Sauber-Ferrari        1:18.547  + 2.620

19.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth       1:19.527  + 3.600

20.  Kovalainen  Lotus-Cosworth        1:19.606  + 3.679

21.  Trulli          Lotus-Cosworth        1:19.902  + 3.975 

22.  di Grassi     Virgin-Cosworth       1:20.566  + 4.639

23.  Senna         HRT-Cosworth          1:21.688  + 5.761

24.  Chandhok    HRT-Cosworth          1:21.853  + 5.926