MONACO, May 22, 2008 (AFP) - Briton Lewis Hamilton was delighted to top the timesheet in Thursday´s practice ahead of Sunday´s Monaco Grand Prix.

"I simply love Monaco and enjoy every single moment I have on the track," said the 23-year-old McLaren Mercedes driver who finished second on the street track as a rookie last year.

"The car felt great almost immediately and I was able to show a good pace from the very beginning," reported the winner of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

Hamilton´s time in the afternoon session was the quickest of the day and gave the McLaren driver major encouragement for Sunday´s 66th running of the showpiece event.

"As the circuit evolved throughout both practice sessions we made some good progress with both the set-up and tyre evaluation.

"There is a long way to go, but I enjoy this so much and we will work hard to continue making progress."

Hamilton dominated the practice early on before Williams´ driver German Nico Rosberg switched to softer tyres midway through the session and recorded a time of 1:15.533 eclipsing Hamilton momentarily.

Rosberg was quickest for ten minutes before Hamilton also switched to softer Bridgestone rubber and posted a time of 1:15.140, beating the Williams´ time by almost four tenths of a second, and more than half a second quicker than Fernando Alonso´s 2007 pole.

Rosberg was able to hang on to second place ahead of Ferrari duo Kimi Raikkonen, the defending champion, and Brazilian Felipe Massa, with Heikki Kovalainen of Finland fifth in the second McLaren.

Kovalainen showed consistent pace throughout most of Thursday´s sessions and is convinced that there will be more improvements on Saturday.

"We made some set-up changes which were not as positive as we thought they would be," said Kovalainen.

"I am confident we will continue to improve in Saturday´s practice session."