F1 Monaco GP live commentary and updates - FP1

Liam Lawson under investigation for leaving the pits when the exit light was red. Replay from his onboard camera suggests it flicked from green to red just as he reached it, which backs up his version of events as relayed on the team radio – he says he had no chance of stopping.

Still, missing a red light is considered a serious offence – because, in the immortal words of Billy Ocean, Red Light Spells Danger...

Only Perez and Bottas used soft Pirellis during that session so we can expect more in the way of quali sims and laptime fireworks in the next couple of practice sessions.

Quite a spread of performance so far, indicative of very different run plans across the grid. That won't stop some people getting overly excited about the half-second gap between the two Mercedes drivers.

More details on Aston Martin's gearbox woes here:

Interesting to see the two Audis in the top 10 given the engine's performance characteristics – it's got quite a large turbo compressor so it suffers from lag more than others.

Two minutes to go so it's highly unlikely this session will restart.

The other VCARB of Liam Lawson narrowly misses an appointment with the barrier at the swimming pool exit. Lawson clipped the barrier at the apex but went straight over the run-off.

Oscar Piastri thwarted (albeit unintentionally) by Arvid Lindblad at Tabac on a push lap there. Replay shows Oscar giving an ironic thumbs-up as he goes past. 

And while teammate Isack Hadjar is drowning his sorrows in the garage, Max Verstappen goes P3 with a 1m14.491s. Half a second off the fastest Ferrari though...

Hamilton restores Ferrari to the top of the timesheet with a 1m14.204s on mediums. But Leclerc is lapping quickly too!

Yes, Charles stops the clock at 1m13.978s to go P1.

In case you missed it, McLaren and Ferrari have been fined €5000 each, suspended for 12 months, after Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc committed the heinous offence of being late to the Thursday press conference.

No doubt fearful of that dread phrase, "question for all the drivers". Or even worse, the ungrammatical mangling of the personal pronoun: "question for yourself".

Oscar Piastri goes P5 with a 1m15.892s - on mediums. Meanwhile teammate Lando Norris catches a huge moment of oversteer around the swimming pool section.

Speaking of Rascasse, that's where Ivan Capelli memorably came a-cropper in 1992 when he ended up with one corner of the car perched on top of the barrier. Sadly Getty don't have an image of this but we thought we'd put up a shot of Capelli in action in the Ferrari F92A, a handsome but not especially competitive car.

Ivan Capelli, Ferrari F92A, 1992 Monaco Grand Prix

Photo by: Getty Images

There's a very brief virtual safety car period to cover the removal of a chunk of Alpine bodywork at Rascasse.

Further back, Bortoleto improves to P12 with a 1m17.260s - much closer to teammate Hulkenberg's 1m16.269s than before.

Hamilton improves to 1m15.110s, which is faster than Antonelli but still 0.182s off Leclerc. Looks like he had to gather quite a big moment of understeer at the exit of Rascasse - perhaps dazzled by the reflection of his glittering purple metalflake crash helmet in the media centre window?

Obviously we'll be seeing faster times presently because all these quickest laps so far have been set on the hard-compound tyres. And of course the track will evolve with more running.

IT IS HE!

Leclerc goes top with a 1m14.928s - getting on top of the Ferrari now after a slightly troubled start to the session; that's 0.689s quicker than his teammate's previous best. Antonelli also faster than Hamilton now, circulating in 1m15.436s.

Slow-motion replays handily showing the intricacy of the Mercedes rear-wing struts, a bespoke item for this weekend. Most teams have taken advantage of the removal of active aero to add downforce by various means...

Stroll now out but both he and teammate Fernando Alonso are over four seconds off the pace. Four seconds! And tech guru Adrian Newey is here this weekend to watch the ghastliness unfold.

Getting a bit spicy between the two Haas drivers as Esteban Ocon harrumphs about teammate Oliver Bearman "[expletive deleted] my laps two laps in a row".

In a separate radio communication, Bearman describes Ocon's driving as "stupid".

Lando Norris goes third fastest but is still 0.87s off Lewis Hamilton's current benchmark. In-car footage from the McLaren showing just how much of a challenge the traffic is around here – worse now, of course, with 22 cars on the grid now for the first time since 2014.

10 minutes down and still no sign of Lance Stroll. Aston Martin has been struggling with driveability and the tendency of the car to get a power surge while downshifting, which isn't what you want around here...

Both Racing Bulls are complaining of not having enough steering lock to get around the hairpin which is... not ideal. They are able to get through the corner but are drifting from the apex to the rear wall, so tweaks will be needed after the session to give Lindblad and Lawson more steering.

But it isn't the best of starts for Leclerc who runs off track after locking up. Thankfully for the Monegasque no harm done as he sticks it into reverse and gets it pointing in the right direction again.

WELCOME TO MONACO!

And we've already been treated to a bit of track action. Yesterday 1998-1999 world champion Mika Hakkinen took to the circuit in the glorious McLaren M2B with which the team made its grand prix debut here in 1966.

The Ford engine – a downsized version of the Indy 500-winning unit – was magnificently rorty, but neither powerful nor reliable enough, so McLaren stuck as a single-car entry for the season and experimented with an Italian-sourced Serenissima V8. Despite being blessed by the local priest before being loaded onto the truck, these weren't much better...