Leclerc brushes off early collision to top Monaco FP1

Charles Leclerc’s ‘Monaco curse’ threatened to strike early, but the hometown hero shook it off, bouncing back from an early run-in with an unaware Lance Stroll to top the timesheets in FP1, leading the early charge ahead of Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.

With no room for error and no time to waste, the opening practice session of the historic Monaco Grand Prix kicked into gear.

First out of the gates was Liam Lawson, with the RB driver clocking his first few Formula 1 miles around the Circuit de Monaco before the first delay of the session hit.

Five minutes later, FP1 was back underway and Lawson returned to the track on the hard compound tyre, quickly learning how difficult traffic is to manage around the condensed 3.3km circuit when confronted with a slowing Ferrari at the final turn. 

Running 2.5 seconds off the pace, more difficulties struck the Kiwi who reported a “really bad” smell in his cockpit, faulting his brakes as he returned to the pitlane.

When the issue settled down, Lawson kicked off the second half of the session with his first taster of the medium compound around the streets of Monte Carlo.

The Kiwi driver struggled to breach a less than two-second margin to the benchmark time, but as the final ten minutes arrived, he achieved that goal after recording a time of 1:13.510s.

Just prior to the chequered flag, the Racing Bulls driver shaved a tenth off his lap time, earning him P17 to start his first-ever Monaco Grand Prix weekend.

Oscar Piastri opened his Free Practice 1 session on the softest C6 compound, setting the third fastest time of the first ten minutes before a Red Flag brought running to a temporary halt. 

When the debris had been cleared and the track was declared green, Piastri rejoined the session with an extra ounce of pace as he recorded a time of 1:13.821s.

He moved to the top of the order by a slim five-millisecond margin over his teammate before watching the likes of Norris and the Ferrari duo make gains as he retreated to the pitlane.  

When he rejoined the session, the Australian had made the switch to the medium compound, touring the Circuit de Monaco three-tenths slower than the red-marked benchmark.

Piastri fed a nightmare radio message to the McLaren pit wall, informing his team that he had “hit the wall”, prompting another trip to the pitlane, however, he was cleared of any damage and instantly made his way back on track.

The Australian rounded out the hectic first hour of practice with the fifth fastest time to his name, a 1:12.342s that left 0.052s behind his teammate, and 0.378s behind P1.

As for the rest of the field, hometown hero Charles Leclerc was the first to bring out the yellow flags after locking up and running onto the escape road at Turn 5.

He made his way back on track, however, just minutes later, the Ferrari driver’s ‘Monaco Curse’ seemed to have made a return when a collision between himself and an unaware Lance Stroll caused Red Flags to wave.

On a flying lap, Leclerc made his way through the first five turns with ease as his competitors shifted out of his way when they were shown blue flags, however, Stroll, failing to hear the instruction from his team to move out of the Ferrari driver’s way, darted into Leclerc’s pathway resulting in the #16 rear-ending the #18.

Leclerc dragged his front wing home, undergoing work to his floor, while Stroll disembarked his Aston Martin, heading straight to the engineering room on Adrien Newey’s first weekend in attendance with his new team.

When the session restarted after five minutes of delay, the Monegasque took his time to rediscover his groove around his home streets before claiming the third fastest time on the C6 — falling short to the quicker McLaren duo.

Lando Norris controlled the opening half of FP1, sitting at the top of the order with a benchmark of 1:12.29s as the clock ticked over the halfway mark before his first error of the session arrived at Sainte Devote.

Becoming one of two drivers to take the detour towards the chapel, Norris locked up and ran into the run-off area at Turn 1 before reversing back on track, replicating Carlos Sainz’s error just moments earlier.

Despite continued struggles with the front left of his SF25, Leclerc shot to the top of the order with a new benchmark of 1:11.964s — a lap that held strong through to the chequered flag despite improvements continuing across the board. 

With the track busy, the stewards were also under the pump as a haul of investigations for impeding were sent their way across the hour.

Max Verstappen felt hard done by through the Swimming Pool Chicane when Gabriel Bortoleto held him up, however, it was Lewis Hamilton who found himself airborne at the same corner when he had to abort his flying lap due to traffic. 

The Dutchman tried his best to pip the hometown hero for the top spot in FP1, coming within two-tenths of Leclerc’s benchmark after 60 minutes of running, however, P2 was all the Red Bull driver could manage.

The same could be said for Norris who also fell short of his supposedly ‘slower’ rivals, with the #4 finishing the session in P3 as the fastest McLaren representative.

Summing up the session perfectly, Isack Hadjar ended his first F1 outing around the Principality breathing a sigh of relief and saying “that was the busiest FP1 of [his] life” as he brought his VCARB 02 home, relatively unscathed.

With just a few hours to debrief the hectic first practice session of the weekend, FP2 will kick off at 01:00 AEST.

Image: Scuderia Ferrari HP

Free Practice 1 Results:

2025 Monaco Grand Prix Schedule (AEST):

Friday, May 23:

FP1: 21:30 – 22:30

Saturday, May 24:

FP2: 01:00 – 02:00

FP3: 20:30 – 21:30

Sunday, May 25:

Quali: 00:00 – 01:00

Race: 23:00

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