Photo: Lorenzo Charlez / AS Media
Championship leader Oliver Rowland ended the free practice session of Formula Renault 3.5’s Monaco round?as the fastest driver.
While it was his teammate Jazeman Jaafar and Carlin’s Tom Dillmann who took the early initiative, a red flag caused by Sean Gelael?coming to a halt?in the tunnel stopped the clock half-way through.
And times started to rapidly drop after the restart with Rowland ending up fastest, less than a tenth ahead of Jaafar.
Matthieu Vaxiviere, who trails Rowland by three points in the standings, was almost half a second down on the Fortec duo as best of the rest, followed by Strakka’s Tio Ellinas.
Dillmann ended up fifth, followed by Brazilian Pietro Fantin and the Dutch duo of?Meindert van Buuren and Nyck de Vries, the latter finishing as the top rookie of the session.
Arden’s Nicholas Latifi and Red Bull protege Dean Stoneman completed the top ten.
Session results
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
| 1 | Oliver Rowland | Fortec Motorsports | 1:24.171 | 24 | |
| 2 | Jazeman Jaafar | Fortec Motorsports | 1:24.259 | 0.088 | 22 |
| 3 | Matthieu Vaxiviere | Lotus | 1:24.667 | 0.496 | 23 |
| 4 | Tio Ellinas | Strakka Racing | 1:24.824 | 0.653 | 25 |
| 5 | Tom Dillmann | Jagonya Ayam with Carlin | 1:25.199 | 1.028 | 22 |
| 6 | Pietro Fantin | International Draco Racing | 1:25.225 | 1.054 | 21 |
| 7 | Meindert van Buuren | Lotus | 1:25.525 | 1.354 | 23 |
| 8 | Nyck de Vries | DAMS | 1:25.692 | 1.521 | 23 |
| 9 | Nicholas Latifi | Arden Motorsport | 1:25.791 | 1.620 | 21 |
| 10 | Dean Stoneman | DAMS | 1:25.850 | 1.679 | 23 |
| 11 | Gustav Malja | Strakka Racing | 1:25.865 | 1.694 | 25 |
| 12 | Egor Orudzhev | Arden Motorsport | 1:26.067 | 1.896 | 22 |
| 13 | Aurelien Panis | Tech 1 Racing | 1:26.600 | 2.429 | 22 |
| 14 | Alfonso Celis | AVF | 1:26.698 | 2.527 | 20 |
| 15 | Bruno Bonif?cio | International Draco Racing | 1:26.752 | 2.581 | 22 |
| 16 | Roy Nissany | Tech 1 Racing | 1:26.859 | 2.688 | 21 |
| 17 | Beitske Visser | AVF | 1:27.095 | 2.924 | 21 |
| 18 | Patric Armand | Pons Racing | 1:27.601 | 3.430 | 22 |
| 19 | Alex Fontana | Pons Racing | 1:27.982 | 3.811 | 21 |
| 20 | Sean Gelael | Jagonya Ayam with Carlin | 1:33.332 | 9.161 | 7 |