Monaco GP track conditions "a nightmare" for F1 drivers in practice

Grip is usually at a premium in first practice as Monaco is a street circuit but overnight rain and cooler than normal temperatures exacerbated the problem.

Drivers complained over team radio during the first session that they were struggling to get heat into the soft tyre with several locking up at Turn 1 and the chicane at the exit of the tunnel.

Rain fell after just 20 minutes of the second session which limited running in the afternoon and meant no meaningful data could be gathered on the super-soft.

"FP1 was a big nightmare with a soft tyre that was not working," said Sainz.

"As soon as you pulled out of the pits the tyres cooled down 20 degrees and you were out of the working range of the tyre.

"I didn't expect it to be that tricky. The prime tyre is so hard that in these conditions that as soon as you do half a lap of cooling down, when you push again you don't have the same feeling in the car.

"This track is all about confidence, consistency, and it's very difficult to have that at the moment."

Jenson Button said it took a number of laps to generate enough tyre temperature to get a good lap time.

"The first two laps, there is no grip at all," said Button. "You're skating around, it's like we don't have tyre blankets.

"It's not easy, but it takes four or five laps and the quickest lap is normally the last of a run, that might be lap 10 or lap 15 fuel corrected."

Williams's Valtteri Bottas agreed, but he said the issue improved in the afternoon when temperatures rose slightly before the rain fell.

"I struggled with the temperature of the soft tyres, as I just couldn't get them into a high enough temperature to make them work," said the Finn.

"It was a bit better in the afternoon, but we still see that we're not where we should be.

"It was a shame we couldn't try the super-soft tyres because I think we could make them work a bit better."

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo said qualifying could be interesting if drivers have to do a series of laps before doing their flying lap.

"Tyre warm up with the cold was pretty poor, so hopefully a bit more sun comes up and it will help us," said the Australian.

"Otherwise qualifying might take a few laps to get it going. The soft was taking a while, even this morning.

"After 10 laps, the times were still coming down."