The Red Bull driver shot to the top of the timesheet in the final minutes of RP3 to beat longtime pacemaker Carlos Sainz by just 0.047 seconds as Ferrari continued its promising start to the weekend.
Home hero Charles Leclerc was two tenths behind Valtteri Bottas in the second Ferrari, who, as the leading Mercedes, was almost half a second behind the pace.
His team-mate, the seven-time world champion Hamilton, finished a difficult practice session seven tenths behind in seventh place and went into the most important qualifying of the season.
Sergio Perez finished fifth for Red Bull while Lando Norris placed his Golf-Livery McLaren ahead of Hamilton and finished sixth in RP3.
Kimi Raikkonen, Pierre Gasly and Sebastian Vettel completed the top 10 for Alfa Romeo, AlphaTauri and Aston Martin in a session that was twice on the red flag due to incidents.
Williams driver Nicholas Latifi hit the wall emerging from the swimming pool chicane about 15 minutes before the end before F1 newcomer Mick Schumacher suffered a severe shunt at the Casino Square exit that destroyed his Haas car.
On the subject of matching items
Both drivers have left their respective teams with a major repair job and are facing a race against time to repair their cars on time and take part in qualifying in two hours.
McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo had another tricky session en route to 13th while Alpine was struggling for pace when Fernando Alonso took a low P15 and Esteban Ocon was the slowest.
Click here for the full results of the last practice session at the 2021 Monaco Grand Prix.
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