Alonso sets the pace in Monaco

Fernando Alonso concluded the opening day of practice in Monaco with the fastest time.

The Spaniard was less than two tenths of a second quicker than Hamilton and Rosberg. Button and Vettel completed the top five. Massa was sixth fastest.

The six top drivers were covered by 0.6s while seventh-placed Schumacher was 1.2s off Alonso’s pace.

How the session unfolded :

Action around the streets of Monaco immediately resumed when the light went green.

As the track conditions got better and better, lap times improved and several drivers appeared at the top of the timesheets. Monaco resident Felipe Massa set the early pace as Mark Webber tried to find some speed having missed the morning session with a gearbox problem.

Massa’s benchmark was quickly lowered by Rosberg and Button. Alonso was also on a quick lap but caught his teammate in the final split and had to lift off. He gave it another go later and stormed at the front.

With just over 20 minutes gone, Pastor Maldonado took a set of super soft tyres and improved his mark to go 7th quickest. Sebastian Vettel was a busy man in the first half hour and completed an 18-lap run. At this point, he was in 14th place, 2.6s off Alonso.

Halfway through the session, Alonso was still leading from Rosberg, Button, Hamilton and Massa.

Vettel then came out with the super soft tyre and jumped from 16th to 1st. He was 0.6s faster than Alonso. Also on the super soft option, Massa moved up to 3rd despite two big moments. Defying Pirelli’s predictions, both Vettel and Massa were able to squeeze more performance from their tyres over a second flying lap. Both improved.

Alonso beat both of them with an impressive lap that put him 0.5s clear of Vettel. Webber was fourth fastest. Button’s first effort yielded him 2nd place, only for Rosberg to demote him to 3rd.

Thirty minutes to the chequered flag, the top ten was: Alonso, Rosberg, Button, Vettel, Massa, Webber, Schumacher, Hamilton, Petrov and Pérez.

As his rivals came out for some high-fuel runs on the super soft, Hamilton went for a quick lap and moved up from 8th to 4th and eventually 2nd.

Ste Devote proved a popular place this afternoon with Maldonado, Alguersuari, Kovalainen, Glock and Trulli paying it a visit.

Vitaly Petrov lost control of his Renault under braking down into the chicane, he hit the barrier on the outside and ripped off the front wing of his car.

Tonio Liuzzi didn’t take part to the session.

FP2 classification: