Monaco FP2: Hamilton streets ahead on day one

After topping the time sheet in the first practice session in Monaco, Lewis Hamilton continued to set the pace with the quickest time of an afternoon session, which saw little running due to steady rain falling across the Principality.

In the morning Hamilton had been the busiest man on circuit, logging 49 laps of the Monaco circuit but in the afternoon the champion put in just 12 laps as the session was interrupted by both red flags and rain.

The session got underway in overcast conditions, with Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz setting the early pace with a lap of 1:18.772. Prior to the Spaniard’s lap, Pastor Maldonado was forced to use the escape road at Mirabeau after making a mistake and soon after Sainz’s lap; Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was forced to do the same.

Sainz’s time at the top of the timing screens was short-lived, however. Ten minutes into the session Red Bull Racing’s Daniil Kvyat took over in P1, his lap of 1:18.548s being tenth faster than Sainz.

Both Mercedes drivers were now getting into the groove however and Nico Rosberg soon established his team’s superiority with a lap of Rosberg flies to a 1m17.932, eclipsing Kvyat by six tenths of a second. Hamilton was just behind Rosberg on track, however and he quickly moved ahead with a time of 1:17.640. He improved again the next time round to set the lap of 1:17.192 that would remain the afternoon’s best.

Then, just before the quarter hour mark, Roberto Merhi lost control of his Manor on the exit of the tunnel. The Spaniard hit the barriers hard, losing the front wing of his car and came to rest in the run-off area of the Nouvelle Chicane.

That brought out the red flags and by the time the session was restarted at 20 past the hours rain was beginning to fall across the Principality.

Pastor Maldonado went out to test the conditions, on supersoft tyres, but after a handful of corners he radioed back that the conditions were too tricky and he returned to the pits.

And for the next hour that was it. With steady rain falling teams retreated to their garages for fear of shipping damage should something go wrong.

With ten minutes left in the session and conditions improving, McLaren’s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo went out for fact-finding missions on intermediate tyres, though they were lapping some 18 or more seconds off the dry pace.

They pair were eventually joined by a number of drivers including Rosberg and Force India’s Sergio Perez who both tried the full wet tyre before the chequered flag fell.

[highlight ]Monaco Grand Prix, Free Practice 2 - Thursday, 21 May 2015[/highlight]