Monaco GP2: Pic goes quickest in practice

The session had barely got going when Mitch Evans’ Russian Time-run machine ground to a halt at the top of the hill approaching Massenet having just left the pits, bringing out the red flags.

Proceedings got under way in earnest a couple of minutes later once the luckless Kiwi’s car had been retrieved, and the times began to quickly tumble, Richie Stanaway leading the way at the halfway mark with a 1m21.575s.

The Status driver then shaved a further 0.072s off his earlier effort with a 1m21.503s, a time that would remain unbeaten until there was a late burst of quick times from drivers on bedded-in supersofts in the final 10 minutes.

Sauber tester Raffaele Marciello was first to depose Stanaway, carving nearly half a second out of the Kiwi’s benchmark, but the Italian was quickly deposed by Red Bull protégé Gasly and then Pic, whose 1m20.556 allowed the Frenchman to close out the session quickest.

Rossi, who held the top spot on a couple of occasions early on, then slotted into second with a time 0.219s slower than the Campos man, narrowly ahead of Gasly and points leader Stoffel Vandoorne.

Completing the top half-dozen were Sergio Canamasas and Marciello, the latter lapping just a thousandth of a second slower than the former.

Stanaway meanwhile found himself shunted down to seventh ahead of Andre Negrao, Rio Haryanto and Norman Nato, a winner around the streets of the principality in Formula Renault 3.5. Barcelona winner Alex Lynn was down in 20th on his first competitive Monaco outing.

Besides Evans, the only other driver to fail to complete the session was Daniel de Jong, who suffered a mechanical problem at half-distance, although Marco Sorensen kissed the barriers after a clumsy lock-up at Rascasse in the closing stages.

Practice results:

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