Hamilton leads FP3 in Monaco
Lewis Hamilton finished the final practice session at Monaco on top of the timesheet. It turned out to be a close fought and difficult session nonetheless with the Briton never entirely happy with his car.
The sun was out for FP3, a welcome change for the teams in Monaco after the very limited running the was going on in the wet second session on Thursday. Following the usual installation laps, during which Ferrari decided to complete 2 with both cars, it was Ericsson and Kobayashi who set the first timed laps.
10 minutes later it was also Ericsson who was the first to end up off the track, outbraking himself in St. Devote. He took the run-off area and found reverse after around 30 seconds to get back to work.
The first half hour saw nobody run on the super soft tyre, opting to get more laps in on the softs who appear to be extremely difficult around Monaco to get up to temperature. Ferrari for instance had trouble with that, noting that when the fronts eventually got in the working temperature range, the rears had already past their best.
On the softs, Rosberg appeared to have the edge over Hamilton with both Mercedes easily ahead of everybody else. Daniel Ricciardo was the closest competitor before he opted to switch to the super softs, ending up on top of the timesheet for a short while.
In the closing stages, the track as usual became very busy and it was Hamilton who ended on top, even though he never appeared to be very much at ease in his car during the entire session.
Times to follow...
