Alonso Leads Hamilton in Practice at LinesMaker

Alonso Leads Hamilton in Practice

By Sarah Holt
BBC Sport in Monte Carlo

Fer­nando Alonso was in impres­sive form as he set a stun­ning prac­tice pace for Fer­rari ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix.

Alonso edged out Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren by 0.105 sec­onds with Nico Ros­berg third fastest for Mer­cedes ahead of Jen­son Button’s McLaren.

Sebas­t­ian Vet­tel had bet­tered Alonso in the morn­ing but was half a sec­ond behind when the cars fit­ted the softer tyres in the afternoon.

Michael Schu­macher was sev­enth fastest ahead of Red Bull’s Mark Webber.

Alonso, a two-time win­ner in Monaco, seemed deter­mined to bend the track to his will and hur­tled his Fer­rari round in one minute and 15.1234 seconds.

At last Sunday’s Span­ish Grand Prix, he had led for 18 laps but in the clos­ing stages found him­self lapped by the Red Bulls and McLarens because of Ferrari’s dwin­dling race pace, espe­cially on the hard tyres.

Alonso was con­fi­dent he could deliver a con­sis­tent chal­lenge in Monaco because this is a track that demands mechan­i­cal grip and pre­cise dri­ving rather than aero­dy­namic effi­ciency — an area where Adrian Newey’s Red Bull excels.

“He’s magic round here,” said Team Lotus reserve Karun Chand­hok. “His hands are a blur at the wheel.

Chand­hok, who was work­ing for BBC Radio 5 Live as an ana­lyst on Thurs­day, added: “Fer­nando is a real street fighter on the ulti­mate street cir­cuit on the cal­en­dar. He is a mas­ter of con­trolled aggres­sion behind the wheel.”

Alonso was not able to take part in qual­i­fy­ing in Monaco last year after a heavy crash dur­ing prac­tice but he still man­aged to cross the line in sixth despite start­ing in the pit lane.

“I’m con­fi­dent with the car,” Alonso told BBC Sport.

“I’m happy to push and I’m push­ing more and more every lap with no big sur­prises from the car.

“Monaco is about con­fi­dence in the car and hav­ing a good set-up which enables you to brake later, to go into the cor­ners quicker and to go closer to the wall with no big risk. At the moment the car is offer­ing me that pos­si­bil­ity so I’m happy.”

The Spaniard did, how­ever, admit that he was expect­ing a fight back from Red Bull over the weekend.

“It’s only Thurs­day and we know that on Sat­ur­day the pres­sure will increase,” he said.

“Red Bull always test dif­fer­ent things on Fri­days and then on Sat­ur­day they are very strong so I expect them to be com­pet­i­tive in qual­i­fy­ing. This is a very unique venue so any­thing can happen here.”

Alonso’s team-mate Felipe Massa also looked lively around Monaco, although the Brazilian’s enthu­si­asm led to sev­eral scary moments as he almost sailed his Fer­rari into the bar­ri­ers at the Swim­ming Pool sec­tion and the final corner.

Massa, who lives in the prin­ci­pal­ity, fin­ished 0.6secs behind Alonso in sixth place.

There were no major changes to the McLaren cars that Hamil­ton and But­ton raced to sec­ond and third last time out in Barcelona.

Hamil­ton and But­ton both claimed vic­tory in Monte Carlo in their championship-winning sea­sons and were bull­ish about their chances of return­ing to the top step of the podium on Sunday.

It was Hamil­ton who led the fight, set­ting the best over­all time in the first and third sec­tors of the cir­cuit to fin­ish the day as Alonso’s clos­est chal­lenger. But­ton was 0.325secs slower than the lead­ing Ferrari.

Hamil­ton said: “It is fan­tas­tic, I love this track. I’ve just been so excited all day.

“I kept it out of trou­ble and I’m happy with the bal­ance of the car and our high-fuel run. It is going to be close, though, as the Red Bull is fast and the Fer­rari looks fast too. But I’m push­ing and push­ing, I want to win this grand prix.”

Vet­tel had set the fastest time in the morn­ing, bet­ter­ing Alonso by 0.113secs, but fin­ished the later ses­sion fifth fastest.

The world cham­pion is tar­get­ing his first win in Monaco but often chooses not to show his hand until qual­i­fy­ing and he appeared to spend much of sec­ond prac­tice focus­ing on longer runs on the track.

Web­ber took a pole-to-flag win in Monaco last sea­son but his run­ning was ham­pered by an elec­tri­cal issue with his gear­box and only inter­mit­tent use of his power-boost Kers system.

The Aus­tralian, who snatched pole from Vet­tel in Barcelona, was cut adrift from the lead­ing con­tenders and a wor­ry­ing 1.5secs off the pace.

Mer­cedes under­lined their abil­ity over one lap with Ros­berg third fastest and Schu­macher, who took his car side­ways into the tyre wall at St Devote in first prac­tice, a sec­ond shy of Vettel’s benchmark.

The ques­tion for the Ger­man team will be whether they can pro­duce con­sis­tent pace in qual­i­fy­ing and then over 78 racing laps.

“We have a real fight on for pole as Fer­rari, McLaren and Red Bull all look very com­pet­i­tive as does Nico Rosberg’s Mer­cedes,” added Chandhok.

“The empha­sis this week­end has sud­denly gone back towards qual­i­fy­ing and we could see six guys fight­ing it out for pole position.”

It was a busy day through­out the field around Monte Carlo’s wind­ing streets and bunch­ing traf­fic led to ris­ing frus­tra­tions and mis­takes, par­tic­u­larly at the first corner.

Adrian Sutil was even told by his Force India’s team radio to “hold it together” as he vented his frustration.

His Scot­tish team-mate Paul di Resta had to retire from the ses­sion with a gear selec­tion prob­lem after set­ting the 15th fastest time.

The dri­vers had another prob­lem to lit­er­ally get to grips with as Pirelli threw another curve­ball into the mix by intro­duc­ing the ‘super­soft’ tyres for the first time this sea­son, with the softs act­ing as the more resilient ‘prime’ tyres.

There was gen­er­ally a pos­i­tive reac­tion to the super­softs but Alonso said it was too early to judge whether they would under­mine Pirelli’s hopes for just a two-stop race by degrad­ing quickly.

Related Posts:

• Hamil­ton Chal­lenges Red Bull Pace
• Hamil­ton Cau­tious Ahead of Turkey
• Schumi Rejects Claims He Blocked Hamilton
• Hamil­ton Angered by Toro Rosso
• Hamil­ton Eyes Monaco Improvement

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