Leclerc heads Hamilton in Monaco first practice

Charles Leclerc led Lewis Hamilton to a Ferrari one-two in first practice at the Monaco Grand Prix as Isack Hadjar crashed his Red Bull.

Leclerc was 0.226 seconds quicker than Hamilton, with Red Bull's Max Verstappen 0.513secs off the pace in third place, ahead of the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell.

Hadjar lost control on the entry to the second Swimming Pool chicane, the rear swinging around on entry and spinning him into the barriers on the exit.

And Fernando Alonso rescued what could have been a high-speed crash at the harbour front chicane in his Aston Martin.

The rear flicked sideways as he went over the crest at the start of the braking point, and as he corrected, the car fishtailed, sending the front towards the barriers.

Although the incident broke the car's front-wind endplate, Alonso kept it largely under control and out of the barriers as it slid wildly up the kerb on the outside of the circuit.

Aston Martin said the incident was not caused by driver error, adding the car is difficult to drive and the brakes locked.

Team representative Pedro de la Rosa said: "What we have right now is a very difficult car and drivers doing their best and doing an incredible job to drive the car in a reliable and safe way.

"I don't really know exactly what happened. It was rear locking but I haven't been able to look at the data and I haven't spoken to Fernando (yet).

"He let go of the brakes just to recover, otherwise it would have been a full spin, so he did really well to come out of that with just a little broken front wing endplate.

"It is all part of the same problem, the drivability and predictability of the car on braking."

The Ferrari drivers were quick throughout, but the car looked on edge.

Both made at least two visits to escape roads at the first corner and chicane, and Leclerc kept the car at Sainte Devote as he suffered a big oversteer slide as he sought to put the power down to launch it up the hill.

McLaren's Lando Norris was sixth fastest, split from team-mate Oscar Piastri by Audi's Nico Hulkenberg.

The second Audi of Gabriel Bortoleto was ninth, ahead of the Alpine of Pierre Gasly and the Williams of Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz.