Perez heads Sainz in Monaco first practice, Hamilton P5
The Mexican’s best effort - a 1m12.487s - was set at the end of a succession of fastest laps on the soft tyre and saw him top opening practice as F1 returned to Monaco for the first time since 2019 following the event's enforced absence last year.
Perez ended FP1 0.119s clear of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who impressed on his way to setting the second-fastest time on the mediums.
Max Verstappen also ran the medium tyre and was third-quickest, just 0.161s down on his Red Bull teammate’s benchmark.
AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly caught the eye as he ran soft tyres to finish fourth, ahead of the two Mercedes drivers, both of whom set their best lap times on mediums.
Lewis Hamilton, who holds a 14-point lead over Verstappen in the championship coming into the weekend, was half a second down on Perez’s session-topping pace and a tenth clear of Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.
Fresh from committing his mid-term future to McLaren by agreeing a new “multi-year” contract on the eve of the Monaco GP, Lando Norris finished seventh.
Sebastian Vettel, Yuki Tsunoda and Kimi Raikkonen rounded out the top 10 order in FP1 for Aston Martin, AlphaTauri and Alfa Romeo.
Returning two-time world champion Fernando Alonso was caught out by Monte Carlo’s famous narrow streets when he hit the wall at the final corner and picked up front wing damage.
The Alpine driver also had a moment down the Sainte-Devote escape road, as did Raikkonen in his Alfa Romeo following a lock up.
A gearbox failure ended Charles Leclerc’s session after just three laps, putting the Ferrari driver at the bottom of the timesheets on a weekend he is hoping to end his run of bad luck in Monaco.
