Monaco GP2: Sirotkin tops practice as Ste Devote claims three cars

ART Grand Prix driver Sergey Sirotkin set the quickest time in GP2 practice in Monaco as Ste Devote claimed three cars in the early stages of the session.

The 45-minute session kicked off five minutes past the scheduled time, due to repairs on the drain cover that was dislodged by Nico Rosberg and then hit by Jenson Button during the Formula 1 FP1 session.

The early pace in GP2's first run of the track this year was set by Norman Nato with a 1m21.788s, albeit he would shortly be surpassed by Sirotkin by 0.03s.

Pierre Gasly then went quickest by eight tenths, visibly on edge throughout his lap as the right side of his car rubbed against the barriers at the Anthony Noghes corner.

Having crossed the line with a new benchmark, he continued to push and went wide at Ste Devote, hitting the outside wall, which ripped his Prema Dallara GP2/11 machine's left rear wheel clean off.

And it was no sooner than the marshals had finished removing Gasly's car from the track that ART Grand Prix driver Nobuharu Matsushita locked up at Ste Devote, going nosecone-first into the barriers.

When the green flag waved again, Sirotkin set the new benchmark at 1m20.837s in what would prove to be a brief interlude before another Turn 1 crash, MP Motorsport's Daniel de Jong oversteering into the barrier.

Jordan King posted the new quickest time as the session restarted again and, while Sirotkin returned to the top spot with 10 minutes remaining, he had reportedly done so by straightlining the Nouvelle Chicane - something he then definitely did on his next flyer.

Nato came up less than a tenth short in his lap to claim second, with Alex Lynn a close third for DAMS.

Arthur Pic was fourth, leading King, Campos Racing's Mitch Evans and Gasly, who only fell as low as seventh despite his early crash.

Russian Time teammates Raffaele Marciello and Artem Markelov took eighth and 10th, split by Oliver Rowland.

Fittingly, the hectic session was concluded by a traffic jam during post-chequered practice starts as Sean Gelael stalled his car.

Practice results

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Sergey Sirotkin	ART Grand Prix	1:20.361
2	Norman Nato	Racing Engineering	1:20.440	0.079
3	Alex Lynn	DAMS	1:20.471	0.110
4	Arthur Pic	Rapax	1:20.666	0.305
5	Jordan King	Racing Engineering	1:20.735	0.374
6	Mitch Evans	Pertamina Campos Racing	1:20.825	0.464
7	Pierre Gasly	PREMA Racing	1:20.959	0.598
8	Raffaele Marciello	Russian Time	1:21.001	0.640
9	Oliver Rowland	MP Motorsport	1:21.039	0.678
10	Artem Markelov	Russian Time	1:21.221	0.860
11	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	1:21.424	1.063
12	Sergio Canamasas	Carlin	1:21.483	1.122
13	Luca Ghiotto	Trident	1:21.652	1.291
14	Sean Gelael	Pertamina Campos Racing	1:21.954	1.593
15	Antonio Giovinazzi	PREMA Racing	1:22.023	1.662
16	Marvin Kirchhofer	Carlin	1:22.212	1.851
17	Gustav Malja	Rapax	1:22.392	2.031
18	Daniel de Jong	MP Motorsport	1:22.473	2.112
19	Nabil Jeffri	Arden International	1:23.210	2.849
20	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	1:23.867	3.506
21	Jimmy Eriksson	Arden International	1:23.979	3.618
22	Philo Paz Armand	Trident	1:24.024	3.663