Lewis Hamilton felt it was a good start to the Monaco Grand Prix weekend despite seeing Daniel Ricciardo set the fastest lap of the day.
The Mercedes AMG PETRONAS driver set the pace in the opening session on Thursday morning, and had his first on-track experience at the same time with the Ultrasoft Pirelli tyre, and admits that despite being the softest tyre available, he still had to work hard to get them up to the correct working temperature.
Despite a few off-track moments during the day, Hamilton still feels that the pace of his W07 is there and he is expecting a strong weekend around the street circuit.
“It’s been a relatively good day,” said Hamilton. “No real surprises – except that the track has changed slightly at Turn 15, which has made it a bit quicker through there.
“Although the new tyres are definitely softer than the other compounds, they still feel pretty hard around here. It’s not as easy to get them in the window as we would hope. But generally it’s been a really positive start.
“We’ve got everything we needed done in both sessions and our pace looks good, so hopefully that continues through the rest of the weekend.”
