Practice 1: Schuey is king

The session was red-flagged just over halfway through when the Jaguar of Mark Webber caught fire on the entry to Tabac. He quickly alighted his burning car and ran to the marshals, who were somewhat tardy to react. Webber grabbed an extinguisher and put out the blaze himself.

When it restarted, Schumacher didn't take much time in asserting himself at the top of the times in his Ferrari. One question mark that might hang over one of his quickest times was that it was set while yellow flags were waving for Bjorn Wirdheim's stranded Jaguar, which had broken down on the exit of the tunnel.

Schumacher's best time was 1m16.502, a whole 0.777secs faster than Sato's BAR. Sato's team-mate Jenson Button was next up, a few hundredths off the Japanese driver's time.

Toyota test driver Ricardo Zonta was in impressive form, setting the fourth quickest time, a tenth clear of McLaren's David Coulthard, a former winner on the streets of Monte Carlo. Fernando Alonso was sixth fastest for Renault, ahead of BAR tester Anthony Davidson. Jarno Trulli (Renault), Juan Pablo Montoya (Williams) and Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren) rounded out the top 10.

Further back, Rubens Barrichello was only 12th fastest in the second Ferrari, while Ralf Schumacher only managed three laps in his Williams before hitting trouble.

Incident-wise, Webber's fire apart, it was a relatively quiet session. Jordan tester Timo Glock overshot Sainte Devote, while team-mate Nick Heidfeld did likewise at Mirabeau.