Highlights

Hamilton crashes in Monaco practice

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-05-25 09:48

McLaren's Formula One championship leader Lewis Hamilton crashed in Monaco Grand Prix practice on Thursday in the first mishap of an otherwise sensational debut season.

The team blamed driver error for the accident with 22-year-old Hamilton braking late and spearing into the tyre wall at Sainte Devote, the first turn at the end of the pit straight, with half an hour remaining of the afternoon session.

The British rookie climbed out of the car and waved at the crowd as he made his way back to the team garage on a sweltering afternoon punctuated by crashes in the Mediterranean principality.

He still ended the day as the third fastest driver on the track, behind team mate Fernando Alonso and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen -- both former Monaco winners.

Double champion Alonso, two points adrift of Hamilton in the overall standings after four races, was quickest in both sessions and the only driver to lap the tight and twisty street circuit in under one minute 16 seconds.

The Spaniard's best lap in the afternoon was 1:15.940 after 1:16.973 in the morning.

Hamilton has been on the podium in the first four races of his Formula One career, a feat achieved by no other driver in the 57-year history of the championship, and had not put a foot wrong in any of them.

Tipped to become the first rookie to win in Monaco this weekend, he is the youngest driver to lead the world championship and has won in the principality on previous appearances in junior series.

However the day started badly when a starter motor failure sidelined him for much of the morning session with mechanics having to remove the car's floor to extricate a piece of debris from the gearbox.

Both sessions were red-flagged to allow marshals to remove stricken Spykers -- Dutchman Christijan Albers who pulled over near Tabac in the morning and German rookie team mate Adrian Sutil who crashed in the afternoon exiting the hairpin before the tunnel.

Italian Giancarlo Fisichella, whose Renault looked far more competitive on the slowest circuit on the calendar, was fourth fastest in the morning before crashing at the same place as Hamilton.

Germany's Ralf Schumacher smashed his Toyota into the barriers at the exit to the swimming pool complex at the end of the second session.

Italian team mate Jarno Trulli was fourth fastest.