Maldonado tops Monaco free practice

Pastor Maldonado has reiterated the form which has given him the nickname The Monaco Maestro by topping the timesheets in this morning’s free practice session at the Principality, easily finishing ahead of Sergio Perez and Christian Vietoris.

The Venezuelan set fastest lap after fastest lap on his way to a best time of 1:20.476, four tenths quicker than his nearest rival and nearly a second faster than the equivalent time in last year’s free practice session.

Maldonado set the running right from the start, sitting on top of the timesheets apart from brief spells on the top spot by Dani Clos and Perez, with no one else able to run him close: the Mexican driver was clearly determined to make up for a disappointing weekend in Barcelona but, with qualifying just hours away, his eagerness was tempered by the knowledge that even a tiny mistake would have a huge cost.

It was a lesson that Scuderia Coloni’s Vladimir Arabadzhiev learnt to his cost when he slid slightly off line on entry to St Devote and clobbered his left rear into the wall, stopping with a broken suspension up the hill, while Max Chilton ran too deep at the same corner but took the escape road to avoid the emergency work for his mechanics.

While Maldonado was untouchable in free practice, however, qualifying is always something else entirely as the whole field pushes at ten tenths to take pole and the overwhelming assistance this gives for tomorrow’s feature race: expect to see the times drop substantially a few hours hence.