A first session disrupted by two red flags. A Ferrari one-two that surprised no one. A young Red Bull driver leaving Monaco’s most photographed corner on the back of a truck.

Charles Leclerc topped the opening practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix on Friday morning, recording a 1:13.978 to lead Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton by just under three tenths of a second in the first competitive running of the weekend. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen completed the top three, with Mercedes pair Kimi Antonelli and George Russell fourth and fifth respectively. The Monegasque, racing days after signing a new multi-year extension with Ferrari, looked immediately at home on the streets where he grew up. Hamilton initially set the early benchmark with a 1:15.617, before improving to 1:14.204 in the medium-tyre runs. Leclerc became the first driver to dip into the 1:13s, sealing the session for Ferrari with the only sub-1:14 lap of the morning.

The session was interrupted by two separate red flags. The most consequential involved Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar, who crashed at the Swimming Pool chicane in the closing minutes of the session. The 21-year-old Frenchman, racing in his first Monaco Grand Prix in the senior Red Bull seat, lost the rear of his RB22 entering the high-speed left-right and made heavy contact with the barriers. The car was retrievable but visibly damaged. The session was halted while marshals recovered the wreckage. Hadjar would be repaired in time for FP2, but the morning had already exposed the cost of Monaco’s smallest mistakes.

Fernando Alonso brought out the other red flag earlier in the session, the first of two interventions from the Aston Martin driver across the weekend. Leclerc himself had a moment in the opening minutes, locking up at Mirabeau (the slow right-hand corner just after Casino Square) and going straight on, before reversing and continuing his lap. The session also featured complaints from the Racing Bulls pair of Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson, both reporting difficulty with the steering through the hairpin. Both drivers were placed under investigation, Lawson for an alleged impeding incident with Leclerc and Lindblad for impeding Oscar Piastri.

The competitive picture was clearer than most opening sessions deliver. Ferrari arrived at Monaco installed as race favourites, with Sky Sports F1 and multiple paddock observers pointing to the SF-26’s cornering performance as the strongest on the grid. The FIA’s decision to ban active aerodynamics across the entire weekend has neutralised the car’s chief weakness, straight-line speed, leaving Ferrari with a platform built almost entirely around the strengths Monaco rewards. The opening hour did nothing to challenge that prediction. Leclerc led, Hamilton was second, and the next closest car was almost three tenths back.

The Audi presence in the top ten was its own quiet story. Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto finished seventh and ninth respectively, with the German splitting the McLarens in a result that confirmed the new Nuvolari livery was running competitively. The team’s first Monaco appearance as a works manufacturer began in the points-paying region of the grid, with the yellow paint visibly catching the cameras through every televised lap. McLaren’s Lando Norris finished sixth, ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri, in what would prove a deceptive position given how the weekend would subsequently develop.

The morning’s takeaways were structural. Ferrari has the speed in cornering on softs and mediums alike. Red Bull is closer than expected, with Verstappen extracting more from the RB22 than its season-long performance suggests should be possible. Mercedes are off the pace by a margin that would matter at any other circuit. McLaren are off the pace by a margin that, on its 1000th Grand Prix weekend, matters more than usual. Hadjar’s crash was the most visible incident of the session. The Ferrari that led him off the track was the structural story underneath it.

Thumbnail: By courtesy of Pirelli