F1 Monaco GP Live Commentary and Updates - FP1 & FP2
Friday's action from the eighth round of the 2024 Formula 1 season.
F1 returns to Monaco for its annual dash around the principality, where all the focus will be on what is arguably the most important qualifying session of the season.
With the gap between Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari appearing to shrink with the latest raft of updates and the walls waiting to claim unsuspecting drivers, the pressure will be high not to make a mistake.
FP1 starts at 12:30 BST (13:30 local time) followed by FP2 at 16:00 BST (17:00 local time).
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Gasly is still sat in his Alpine in the garage but it isn't looking like a quick fix that the team had previously hoped it would be. Everyone else is able to run smoothly so far.
Bottas is the latest to inspect the run-off on the left of the first corner but he's able to get going again. Not such good fortune for Gasly, who reports he has no power and pits once again.
TV replays show Verstappen give an inside wall a very firm kiss with his front-right tyre. That is as probably as close as he'd want to get without risking car damage.
Gasly is told to pit as his Alpine has an engine issue. The French driver has just five laps to his name so far as his crew gets to work on fixing the car.
Hamilton locks up into the Nouvelle chicane and takes to the run-off area to avoid a major drama. Hulkenberg suffers a similar fate at Sainte Devote, and slides his car around in the run-off to get going again.
A flurry of improvements has the timing screen rolling like a Monaco casino slot machine (sorry, that's our one and only of those). Norris is on top now with a 1m15.294s.
With said mediums on, Piastri leads the early laps with a 1m18.002s, 0.047s up on Verstappen. The TV director has spotted Jos Verstappen trackside - it has been a while since we've seen him, can't think why...
Only Albon is missing from the action, while everyone is on hards apart from Verstappen and Piastri who are on mediums. Given this race is so kind on tyres, expect drivers to get through the harder compounds in practice to keep their soft tyre stock high for quali and the race.
Hamilton leads out the pack to start the Monaco traffic jam. As predicted, Piastri is warned over team radio of light rain forecast to hit towards the end of the session. So plenty of early running coming up.
Those helicopter shots overlooking Monaco never get old. In modern day motorsport it feels even more special to have races like this - you'd get laughed at trying to propose a new race like this with a track like this today.
The drivers have made their way to the garages ahead of the start of opening practice. As you'll be familiar with, we've got 60 minutes of track action to come followed by another hour this afternoon. No sprint race format tweaks this weekend.
Off of the track the latest driver market murmurs continue, and the silly season has taken a fresh twist with Sainz linked to a Williams move. Here's the latest.
Most of the F1 teams have shown off their special styling tweaks and track-specific updates for Monaco, with McLaren the boldest on the looks front, with a Senna yellow and green tribute.
The McLaren MCL38, with a special Senna themed livery
