Round 7 of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship commenced with practice on Friday at the Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo as teams prepared for Sunday's 78-lap Monaco Grand Prix.

Friday's running consisted of two 60-minute sessions - FP1 and FP2 - around the historic 3.337-kilometer (2.074-mile), 19-turn street circuit. The first running of the Monaco Grand Prix took place in 1950. The Circuit de Monac is the shortest track on the F1 2023 calendar and also has the slowest average speed.

Points leader and Red Bull driver Max Verstappen had the quickest lap of the two Friday sessions.

During the second session, the Red Bull driver set the best time of 1m12.462s on a new set of P Zero Red softs.

The SF-23's of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz ran the second and third quickest times, respectively.

Leclerc, last year's poleman and a native Monegasque, was six hundredths of a second slower, stopping the clock at 1m12.527s, marginally quicker than his teammate Carlos Sainz (1m12.569s).

Sainz led for much of FP2 but ended his day prematurely when he crashed into the barriers in the Swimming Pool section with about 15 minutes of the session remaining, causing a red flag.

"In general, I think the day was positive. We were fast in both sessions and the car feels okay on track," said Sainz. "There are still a couple of things I want to try tomorrow on the set-up to try and improve, but overall we are quite competitive."

"Obviously, it was not ideal to finish the session in that way, after a small miscalculation trying to find the limit. Sorry to the team and the mechanics for the extra work," added Sainz.

In addition to being fastest on the softs, Verstappen also set the best time of the day using the medium (1m13.312s) while Sainz did so on the hard (1m13.808).

Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was fourth quickest on Friday followed by McLaren driver Lando Norris.

"We made a few changes from FP1 to FP2, which were in the right direction, and we definitely got a bit more out of the car, so we'll continue to try to explore that direction, see if we can improve a little bit more into tomorrow," said Norris.

With a rapidly evolving track and new developments on the W14, Friday was a day of learning for Mercedes.

The team reported that maximising mileage and understanding of the new aerodynamic package and suspension was a key focus.

Lewis Hamilton led a chunk of the FP1 session with the best effort of his single-lap run, before switching to high-fuel running. He ended the session in P3 with teammate George Russell, struggling with rear grip, finishing P15.

"We've had a busy day but ran decent programmes with both cars and managed to cram in plenty of set-up compares along the way," said Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director. "It's difficult to evaluate the update at this track from a lap-time point of view, but from what we can see it's all working as expected."

FP1 was interrupted twice by red flags: the first with about 20 minutes to go following an impact against the barriers at the Nouvelle chicane for Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg which damaged his left-rear wheel rim, the other with three minutes remaining because of an accident for Williams Racing's Alex Albon who hit the guardrails at Sainte Devote, ending the session early.

Saturday's FP3 session is scheduled for 12:30pm local time with qualifying set to start at 4:00pm.

Pos	Driver		Team		Time		Gap

1	Verstappen	Red Bull	1:12.462	103.014 mph
2	Leclerc		Ferrari		1:12.527	0.065
3	Sainz		Ferrari		1:12.569	0.107
4	Alonso		Aston Martin	1:12.682	0.220
5	Norris		McLaren		1:12.906	0.444
6	Hamilton	Mercedes	1:12.960	0.498
7	Perez		Red Bull	1:12.991	0.529
8	Bottas		Alfa Romeo	1:13.050	0.588
9	Gasly		Alpine		1:13.089	0.627
10	Ocon		Alpine		1:13.162	0.700
11	Stroll		Aston Martin	1:13.185	0.723
12	Russell		Mercedes	1:13.191	0.729
13	Zhou		Alfa Romeo	1:13.354	0.892
14	Magnussen	Haas		1:13.457	0.995
15	Hulkenberg	Haas		1:13.520	1.058
16	Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	1:13.641	1.179
17	de Vries	AlphaTauri	1:13.663	1.201
18	Piastri		McLaren		1:13.673	1.211
19	Albon		Williams	1:14.217	1.755
20	Sargeant	Williams	1:14.238	1.776

Pos	Driver		Team		Time		Gap

1	Sainz		Ferrari		1:13.372	101.736 mph
2	Alonso		Aston Martin	1:13.710	0.338
3	Hamilton	Mercedes	1:14.035	0.663
4	Perez		Red Bull	1:14.038	0.666
5	Leclerc		Ferrari		1:14.093	0.721
6	Verstappen	Red Bull	1:14.244	0.872
7	Norris		McLaren		1:14.467	1.095
8	Ocon		Alpine		1:14.585	1.213
9	Stroll		Aston Martin	1:14.653	1.281
10	Albon		Williams	1:14.666	1.294
11	Bottas		Alfa Romeo	1:14.718	1.346
12	Magnussen	Haas		1:14.725	1.353
13	Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	1:14.820	1.448
14	Gasly		Alpine		1:14.866	1.494
15	Russell		Mercedes	1:15.066	1.694
16	de Vries	AlphaTauri	1:15.083	1.711
17	Piastri		McLaren		1:15.192	1.820
18	Sargeant	Williams	1:15.557	2.185
19	Zhou		Alfa Romeo	1:15.684	2.312
20	Hulkenberg	Haas		1:15.785	2.413

(images provided by Aston Martin F1 Media & Alpine F1 Media)