Vettel pips Alonso in first practice

Sebastian Vettel edged out on top of a close battle with Fernando Alonso in Monaco’s opening practice.

The Red Bull driver was one tenth of a second faster than the Spaniard. Nico Rosberg was third fastest, 0.5s slower than Vettel. Massa, Hamilton and Button were all within a second of this morning’s pacesetter.

Maldonado, Sutil, Petrov and Schumacher completed the top ten.

Missing from the top five was Vettel’s teammate Mark Webber. The Australian suffered from a gearbox problem and could only complete three laps in the session. He didn’t set a time.

The streets of Monaco already claimed some victims: Tonio Liuzzi hit the barriers on the run down to the chicane and span, Michael Schumacher made a mistake under braking at Ste Devote and ended up in the barriers.

How the session unfolded:

As usual, the first part of the session was pretty quiet. Most of the drivers only completed some installations laps, coming in and out of the pits to sample the track conditions.

Narain Karthikeyan was the first to post a time on the board, fifteen minutes in, and was joined ten minutes later by Sergio Pérez and Jérôme d’Ambrosio. The session then gently came to life and saw Pastor Maldonado and Kamui Kobayashi trading fastest times.

Halfway through the session, Ferrari’s Massa went top but was quickly demoted to 2nd by Force India’s Sutil. The Brazilian immediately responded and broke the 1’19 barrier to go nearly two seconds faster than the German. As things were starting to hot up, the session was red-flagged because of an apparent water leak on the pit straight.

Organizers tried to halt it by closing a valve and the session restarted five minutes later.

Lewis Hamilton and Paul di Resta were the first to leave the pitlane. More cars soon filtered out and the action resumed. Hamilton jumped to P2 with his first timed lap of the weekend. He improved on his second lap but remained 2nd quickest to Massa. In the meantime, his teammate Jenson Button moved up to P3.

As Alonso joined his teammate at the front, Hamilton upped the pace and went 0.4 faster than Massa. Rosberg did even better and was the first to break under the 1’18 barrier. Alonso lowered the German benchmark minutes later, while Liuzzi hit the barriers and had a spin on his way to the chicane. He stopped his damaged HRT there.

Hamilton nailed another fast lap to take over at the front from Alonso. Massa then took his turn at the front, while Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel was slowly gathering speed. He eventually moved on top with a 1’17’’309.

With seven minutes to go, Michael Schumacher went off the road at Ste Devote and hit the barriers. Right behind him, Narain Karthikeyan also made a mistake but, unlike the Mercedes driver, was able to keep going.

Rosberg and Alonso overhauled Vettel, but the German immediately stroke back and reclaimed the top spot. The final minutes were hectic and, despite Alonso’s best efforts, the reigning World Champion set the fastest time of the session.

Alonso was one tenth down on the Red Bull driver. Rosberg was third fastest with Massa fourth.