Nico Rosberg finished second, after Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, with Michael Schumacher fifth quickest. The seven-time world champion believes the slow-speed street circuit will not allow the Red Bulls to distance themselves too much from the field.
"You clearly have to say that Monaco is a very special place to drive," Schumacher said. "I got back into the rhythm of the track, especially on the long runs, and I think we can be quite confident for Saturday as the car is definitely quite reasonable to handle.
"The other teams who have a certain top speed advantage on other tracks at the moment do not have this advantage here, so the whole field comes a bit closer together which will make it a very interesting qualifying in my view. I am looking forward to it,” said the Mercedes driver.
Schumacher’s teammate, Nico Rosberg, declared himself pleased with his performance in the first practice sessions, despite losing running time during first practice due to a suspension problem.
"We made good progress this afternoon after losing some time in the morning with a pushrod problem that we had to fix. The laptimes looked quite promising in the second session and I felt very comfortable in the car,” said the German. "We were able to improve the set-up continuously and get the tires working better as the session went on. So everything looks promising after the first day," Rosberg added.
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