2013 Monaco GP, Practice One: Nico Rosberg sets early pace from Fernando Alonso

Nico Rosberg showed an immediate glimpse of Mercedes' expected strong Monaco pace as the German edged out Ferrari's Fernando Alonso to lead the way in Thursday's Practice One session.

Indeed, in keeping with the traditions of a Thursday morning in Monaco, the start to the weekend's opening session proved particularly quiet with all drivers only completing installation laps during the first half an hour. And while the action ramped up substantially thereafter, the 90 minutes ran largely without major incident, although numerous drivers ran straight on at the harbourside chicane and Adrian Sutil was lucky not to do more serious damage to the rear of his Force India after grazing the barrier in a 180-degree spin into St Devote. More answers as to where the balance of power lies at the head of the timesheet are likely to reveal themselves in the later P2 session, but Martin Brundle has already seen enough to predict that a tightly-contested battle for victory is in store this weekend. "The story for me is that we've got a real race on our hands. Mercedes are strong, unsurprisingly, Red Bull are in there without a doubt, Ferrari look good, Lotus look good...they're all in the fight," the Sky Sports F1 commentator said. "Also the pace looked good. The tyres looked like they were hanging on pretty well too, despite it being a green track and lots of new surfaces here. I'd say a very encouraging first session." Practice One Timesheet The 2013 Monaco Grand Prix this weekend is live only on Sky Sports F1. Don't miss out, upgrade or subscribe to Sky Sports today