MONTE CARLO – Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes one-two sweep of the top spots in practice Thursday for the Monaco Grand Prix at Circuit de Monaco.
Hamilton bested his teammate, Valtteri Bottas, in both practice sessions. Hamilton’s best lap came in the second practice when he turned a 1:11.118 lap around Monaco’s tight street circuit.
“It’s the dream for every driver to come to Monaco and have a car that you can exploit and utilize your abilities with,” Hamilton said. “I’m really proud of the team and naturally our goal is to try and do something really positive this weekend. We’ve made some small tweaks over the two sessions and during the sessions as well, but I’ve been quite happy with the set-up. Every year we come back here, it gets faster and you really notice it when you’re going past the barriers. Coming into turn 12, you carry so much speed into that corner, and then there’s just the wall in front of you; going up the hill to Casino it’s the same thing. It’s incredibly intense out there and you have to be so focused.”
Bottas was nipping right at Hamilton’s heels, falling .081 of a second off Hamilton’s fastest lap in the second practice.
“It’s been a good day for us on track,” said Bottas. “In previous years, the car felt sometimes difficult to drive, but today it was very driveable, responsive and enjoyable. You need to find the limits on this track and I felt comfortable to push towards the limit, which is a good sign. Now we need to fine tune the set-up and make sure we keep going in the right direction. I think we’ve started the weekend on the right foot, but we’re in Monaco and anything can happen.”
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was third fastest, .763 of a second behind the pace set by Hamilton Thursday afternoon. Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly was fourth best, followed by the Toro Rosso entry of Alexander Albon in fifth.