Alonso fastest in Monaco

Preparations for the Monaco GP got off to a slow start on Thursday morning as none of the teams was eager to send its cars out on a green track.

The Scuderia Toro Rosso finally decided to get going with fifteen minutes gone and had Jaime Alguersuari out in the streets of Monaco. The Spaniard lapped alone for a few minutes, steadily improving on his lap times, before being joined on track by Vitaly Petrov.

Many drivers left the pits with just over an hour remaining and reigning World Champion Jenson Button quickly established himself at the top of the timesheets. He briefly traded fastest lap times with Alguersuari before upping the pace and putting himself comfortably in the lead.

Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa then joined in the action and outpaced the British driver by a few hundredths of a second. Before the last 30 minutes, Hamilton was leading Massa by 0.036 and Button by 0.160.

The last driver to embark on a flying lap, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel slowly moved up the order. He was in fourth place with 29 minutes remaining.

Robert Kubica slightly upset the established order when he put his Renault on top, with a 1’16’’447 fastest lap, but was immediately demoted to 2nd by Fernando Alonso while Vettel moved up one place to come third fastest. At that time, 0.192s covered the four leading drivers.

Alonso further upped the pace and was the first to dip below the 1’16 barrier. The last minutes saw a last dash from all the drivers bar Karun Chandhok who spun his HRT earlier at Massenet.

Sebastian Vettel moved up to 2nd, just 0.073s behind Alonso, with his teammate Webber up to 2th place.

Kamui Kobayashi made a mistake in the Swimming Pool Complex right at the end of the session, ripping off the front wing of his Sauber. With yellow flags out, there was no improvement to report and Fernando Alonso ended the session on top ahead of Sebastian Vettel, Robert Kubica and Mark Webber.

His Ferrari teammate was fifth fastest. Michael Schumacher was sixth fastest for Mercedes, heading both McLaren Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. Nico Rosberg spent most part of the session in the pits, as his mechanics worked frantically on his car, and set the 11th fastest time.