Monaco Grand Prix 2016 Qualifying: Results, Times from Thursday's F1 Practice

Lewis Hamilton set the pace on Thursday morning in the first free practice session ahead of the 2016 Monaco Grand Prix.Mercedes team-mate and world championship leader Nico Rosberg finished close behind in an electrifying morning session.Read on for a recap of Thursday's practice action in Monaco.FP1 RecapHere is the classification for the morning's session, per F1:Hamilton got off to an impressive start as he immediately set about leading the classification, and he continued to improve his time until he was over two seconds faster than last year's best FP1 time:Pirelli Motorsport noted the speed with which the drivers raced around the track and anticipated more to come:Indeed, Hamilton eventually set a time of one minute, 15.537 secondsjust half a second behind the lap that earned him pole position in Monaco last year.Rosberg clocked in one-tenth of a second slower, ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo, though the 30-year-old's efforts at the end of the session were denied after he seemingly ran over a loose drain cover:Meanwhile, Turn Onewhere he crashed twice in 2013continued to give Felipe Massa problems, and the Brazilian's session was cut short early on when he slammed into the barriers:Hamilton and Felipe Nasr also experienced problems there after locking up, but unlike the Williams driver, they were able to avoid damage to their cars.Esteban Gutierrez's session ended prematurely as well after encountering a problem with his engine, which theHaas F1 Team would reveal to be an "electrical issue:"Turn 10 also proved to be problematic, asValtteri Bottas, Jenson Button, Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez all had difficulty there,though the latter was able to salvage eighth place in the classification.The session will undoubtedly help Hamilton's confidence, and he'll look to build on that for the remainder of practice and qualifying. However, the Englishman needs to do it when it countsin the race. He has started on pole in three of the year's five races thus far and failed to win a single one.
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