Ferrari off to a good start in Monaco

Ferrari dominated the free practices on Thursday as Fernando Alonso was the quickest driver in both sessions. The Spaniard dominated the ninety minutes on the track available for the 24 cars to prepare for Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix.

The quickest lap time of Alonso came during the second session with a time of 1m14.904s on soft tyres. During the afternoon session Nico Rosberg was the second fastest with a time of 1m15.013s, followed by Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel with 1m15.099s.

The rain also showed up in the afternoon session, which prevented many drivers to make improvements on their laptimes. Most of the drivers stayed out on the track testing the car in slippery conditions, with no one opting to try on the intermediate tyres. Although there were some close calls and visits through the escape roads at Sainte Devote and the chicane, no one hit the barriers.

The time spent at the pits during the morning session seem to have worked for Nico Rosberg who improved is performance and was once again ahead of his team-mate Michael Schumacher, who only managed fifth place behind the second Ferrari of Felipe Massa.

On both sessions McLaren was away from the top of the standings, with Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button finishing the second free practice in seventh and ninth spot, respectively, separated by Force India’s Adrian Sutil. After his dominating performance in Spain, Mark Webber for Red Bull closed the top ten of the afternoon practice.

Nevertheless the top-11 drivers were all very close as Renault’s Vitaly Petrov was only eight tenths of a second of the pace of Fernando Alonso.

One of the big surprises of the day was Renault’s Robert Kubica who, after a third place in the first session, finished in sixth spot after the afternoon session. The Pole was among the many drivers to top the times during the opening half hour of the second practice.