Max Verstappen is fourth on the timesheets now with a set of the hard compound bolted on. The Dutchman is nearly a second off Charles Leclerc's top marker and on his latest lap, he calls into base to say his "tyres are just dead, completely dead."

Title leader Kimi Antonelli, 43 points ahead of George Russell in the championship, switches from his hard to rubber to take on the mediums. Russell, meanwhile, is down in ninth, also on the yellow medium compound.

Image source, Getty Images

Monaco is an extra special weekend for McLaren, as the team are preparing to celebrate a milestone achievement of their 1,000th grand prix in Formula 1.

The team's maiden F1 race was in Monte Carlo 60 years ago in 1966 and since then, McLaren have won 203 grands prix, 13 drivers' championships and 10 constructors' titles.

Reigning world champion Lando Norris now has the most race starts for the team with 156, surpassing David Coulthard’s previous record of 150.

Norris said he was "very" proud of the achievement, adding: "For me to play a small part in helping McLaren go from where they were a few years ago - which is where no one wants to see McLaren - to where we are now has been an incredible journey that I've been very lucky to be part of."

Norris, who won Monaco for the first time last year, and team-mate Oscar Piastri will be driving around in a one-off livery to mark the occasion.

Let us know if you've been to the Monaco Grand Prix and how did you find it? Use the 'get involved' button and tell us your thoughts on this famous race.

Another thing that has been ditched for the Monaco Grand Prix on the active aerodynamics front is straight mode, so it's corner mode all the way this weekend.

The Cadillac boys, Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas, are running a set of mediums at the moment, along with Aston Martin's Lance Stroll.

Andrew Benson
BBC F1 correspondent in Monaco

If you get the chance to wander around Monaco and watch a Formula 1 car, you almost have to suspend your sense of disbelief at what they are doing. You are not fast unless you are touching the barriers in certain corners. The circuit is so narrow. The tunnel is a sensory overload experience to stand in there. It refreshes your love for Formula 1 if you ever felt jaded at any point by some of the stuff that goes on in the paddock. The place to fix that is to stand behind a barrier and have your mind blown for a few minutes.

Isack Hadjar tells his Red Bull pit wall his car is "undriveable" going up the hill, and now the Frenchman is down to seventh on the timesheets.

Charles Leclerc, meanwhile, is having a much better time after his very early lock-up. The Ferrari man, with an emotional win on home soil in 2024, goes above team-mate Lewis Hamilton - and now title leader Kimi Antonelli, who goes second - to clock a 1:15.060 on the hard tyre.

Leclerc is 0.376 seconds quicker than teenager Antonelli and more than half a second faster than Hamilton.

The two Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar are running in second and third in the early stages of this Monaco first practice session. Four-time world champion Verstappen was asked if he thought the new generation of cars will shine this weekend on the tight and twisty street of Monte Carlo, to which he replied "maybe" with a smile on his face, adding the cars are "a little bit more agile in the low speeds" now.

Over at Haas, team-mates Estean Ocon and Oliver Bearman are furious with one another as they follow each other closely on track. Ocon vents his frustrations first on the radio, with Brit Bearman then telling his engineer: "That was so stupid by Esteban."

Andrew Benson
BBC F1 correspondent in Monaco

Image source, Getty Images

Fernando Alonso says he is "very relaxed, optimistic" that Aston Martin have managed to find a solution to the seat discomfort he was suffering that led to his retirement at the Canadian Grand Prix. "We went back nearly to the 2025 seat position," said Alonso, who worked with engineers and mechanics at the track on Tuesday on the issue. "So basically, we are in a known baseline now. It's not an experiment."

Monaco is a race where Honda’s power deficit - said by sources in the team to be as much as 50kW (67bhp) - will not be exposed as badly as anywhere else, and that has led to suggestions Alonso might be able to have his best result of the year so far here, on a track where his genius has always shone. But he is more concerned about another aspect of the car. "We struggle with the gearbox since Miami," he said, "and Monaco is not the place to have a random downshift, that you have a rear locking or pushing or something like that because then you will crash into the wall and the driver will look stupid.

"We are a passenger sometimes when you put one gear down and you have push on the engine like going on full throttle. So that's the thing that we need to make sure that we make a step in the right direction in Canada, and Monaco will tell the truth. if you have the downshift problem like we had in Miami, probably we cannot even race because we will crash in one of the breaking points because you will have a very different downshift type."

Luke Browning
Williams reserve driver Luke Browning on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra

It's a real extremity that hairpin in Monaco, isn't it? It's super, super tight.

Lewis Hamilton is a three-time winner around the streets of Monte Carlo, and Ferrari have pinned as the favourites for this year's race, with McLaren's Oscar Piastri saying the Scuderia have been quick in all the corners this season, so they are definitely one of the teams to watch out for.

Hamilton goes purple in all sectors and he goes to the top of the timesheets with a 1:15.617 on the hard compound.

Image source, Getty Images

It's business as usual for Pirelli in Monaco, with the softest tyres in the range selected for the 78-lap grand prix. Teams can choose from the C3 hard, C4 medium and C5 soft compound. The green intermediates and blue full wets are also on standby, should they be required.

In its preview, Pirelli says the road has been resurfaced "between Turns 19 and 1, between Turn 7 and the entrance to the tunnel, as well as on the entry to and exit from the pit lane."

Something we won't see this weekend is the mandatory two-stop rule that was featured last year. The FIA has scrapped it for this season's event and has returned to the normal one-stop rule of drivers using two compounds of slick tyres during the race.

Racing Bulls receive a call from Liam Lawson and it turns out the New Zealander is having the exact same problem as his team-mate Arvid Lindblad. "I cannot turn at the hairpin," Lawson tells his race engineer.

"I don't think I have enough steering for the hairpin," says the only rookie on the grid this season, Racing Bulls' Arvid Lindblad.

The field have headed out on the hard tyre, with Red Bull's Max Verstappen banking the quickest time of 1:18.119.

Charles Leclerc has come to a stop already. The Monegasque driver has locked up at Mirabeau early doors and needs to back up to get himself out of the way of Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who is just behind.

Glitz and glamour of Monaco.

First practice is green.

Image source, Getty Images

After two race weekends with the threat of rain, although neither were affected in the end, Monaco is set to be dry and sunny for all three days of track action.

BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra 3

Hello to Rosanna Tennant, Harry Benjamin and F1 journalist Scott Mitchell-Malm for Friday's running in Monaco. Williams reserve driver Luke Browning might also pop up during first practice, too.

To tune in to the first hour, click the 'listen live' at the top of this page, if you're on the go, head over to BBC Sounds and search for Sports Extra 3 or you can ask your smart speaker to "play Sports Extra 3".

Image source, Getty Images

Quotes travel fast in the paddock, so when Kimi Antonelli was told Mercedes team-mate George Russell had said the title was already his to lose, he had this to say in response.

"I don't really give weight to that line," he said, "because it's still so early in the season. I continue trying to excel, trying to maximise the car and see where we end up at the end of the season.

"It's difficult to think you can lose something when you don't have the championship. How can I lose it when I didn't win it yet?"

He may be leading the championship now but during his debut season in Formula 1 last year, Antonelli's European swing was a tough experience, with the rookie suffering four DNFs and picking up just three points in total.

Now that he's on top, Antonelli said he doesn't feel that much pressure. "I feel pretty relaxed. I just keep doing what I'm doing, trying to raise the bar," he added.

"George is a super-strong team-mate and he will make my life difficult."

Andrew Benson
BBC F1 correspondent in Monaco

Image source, Reuters

George Russell says this year's world championship is Kimi Antonelli's "to lose" after the Briton's retirement from the last race in Canada.

Russell heads into this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix with a 43-point deficit to his Mercedes team-mate after the Briton's engine failed while leading in Montreal.

"It's his to lose," said Russell.

"My mindset is to enjoy every single race, try and win every single race, the same as I've done this whole season. I'm going to fight the same, I'm not going to change my mentality at all, nor am I going to let this put any more pressure on to me."

Russell has bemoaned a series of events going against him - including technical issues in qualifying in China, a safety-car intervention in Japan that handed the lead to Antonelli and the Canada problems - but says he has no reason to feel he cannot bounce back.

"I don't feel like I need to get every single result possible, because the season's long enough that over the course of the season, it will swing if you're the guy who's on top," he said.

Image source, Getty Images

Charles Leclerc is continuing his journey with Ferrari after putting pen to paper on a fresh multi-year deal with the Italian team before his home race in Monaco.

The 28-year-old said on Thursday he loves the Scuderia and has faith in team boss Fred Vasseur, adding: "We have a very, very good relationship and I strongly believe that he is the person that will be able to bring Ferrari back to the top."

Leclerc has competed in 155 races for Ferrari since joining in 2019, taking 27 pole positions and winning eight times. He said there were options on the table from other teams but he wouldn't spill the beans as to who those teams were. "For me, Ferrari was also the choice," he added.

He did say he'd let those teams who were interested say who they were, so we'll keep our eyes peeled. Send your guesses in using the 'get involved' button on the live page.

Image source, Getty Images

It wasn't double points for Mercedes in Canada but they still managed to pull ahead of second-placed Ferrari by two points at the top of the constructors' standings.

McLaren had a miserable weekend two weeks ago with Lando Norris' retirement and Oscar Piastri finishing outside the points but the defending champions stay third, with Red Bull 49 points behind them in fourth.

Alpine in fifth had both drivers in the top 10 last time out which gives them a 14-point buffer over sixth-placed Racing Bulls heading into the Monaco weekend.