Bottas pips Hamilton as Mercedes stay top in Monza
Valtteri Bottas was fastest in afternoon practice at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza on Friday, ahead of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.
Bottas was a little over a tenth of a second faster than his team mate Lewis Hamilton’s morning benchmark. Hamilton also improved in FP2 but he ended q quiet session 0.056s off Bottas’ best.
The second practice ended with the same two-by-two line-up in the first six positions, with Ferrari drivers Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen ending the day faster than the two Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo.
However, McLaren displaced Force India in the running order. Stoffel Vandoorne and Fernando Alonso were seventh and eighth respectively on the timing screens, with Esteban Ocon demoted to ninth. Williams’ Felipe Massa rounded out the top ten.
After the morning’s light rain, second free practice started in overcast but dry conditions. With rain still a possibility, the teams got to work straight away with the Haas duo of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen first on track.
Once the initial flurry of laps was over, Hamilton emerged to go top 15 minutes into the session with a time of 1:21.956s on soft compound tyres. That put him almost half a second faster than Bottas and Raikkonen. Vettel was fourth fastest ahead of the two Red Bull drivers, with Force India’s Esteban Ocon seventh albeit over a second off Hamilton’s pace.
Verstappen’s first outing on supsersofts promoted him to third place, despite the RB13 proving tail-happy through Ascari. Lance Stroll also found that section a tall order: he spun round and sparked double waved yellows, until the Williams got back going in the right direction.
As the 90-minute session approached the midway point, Bottas went top with a lap of 1:21.406s which was half a tenth faster than his Mercedes team mate’s latest. Vettel and Raikkonen also improved, demoting Verstappen straight back to fifth. Meanwhile McLaren’s experiments in arranging a ‘tow’ between their cars saw Stoffel Vandoorne boosted to seventh by Fernando Alonso.
- Mercedes and Hamilton on top at Monza for FP1
With the weather remaining dry, attention then turned to long distance runs on the supersofts. Mercedes actually called time on their session ten minutes early, content that their programme has been successfully completed.
Another driver losing time on Friday afternoon – albeit for less happy reasons – was Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg. He managed just 14 laps before being sidelined in the garage with a hydraulic issue. By comparison, Force India’s Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez both completed 43 laps after lunch.
Birthday boy Carlos Sainz was forced to pull off at the second chicane after he started spewing a trail of smoke and oil. The Toro Rosso was parked out of the way and didn’t interrupt proceedings. By contrast, a virtual safety car was needed when Magnussen stopped on track after exiting the second Lesmo with broken suspension.
Toro Rosso’s disappointment was compounded when Sainz’ team mate Daniil Kvyat was ordered back to the pits with a problem ten minutes before the chequered flag came out.
Italian Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 results
1
Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes
1:21.406s
25
2
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
1:21.462s
+ 0.056s
24
3
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
1:21.546s
+ 0.140s
33
4
Kimi Räikkönen
Ferrari
1:21.804s
+ 0.398s
34
5
Max Verstappen
Red Bull
1:22.409s
+ 1.003s
34
6
Daniel Ricciardo
Red Bull
1:22.752s
+ 1.346s
22
7
Stoffel Vandoorne
McLaren
1:22.947s
+ 1.541s
31
8
Fernando Alonso
McLaren
1:22.968s
+ 1.562s
31
9
Esteban Ocon
Force India
1:22.977s
+ 1.571s
43
10
Felipe Massa
Williams
1:22.985s
+ 1.579s
42
11
Carlos Sainz
Toro Rosso
1:23.150s
+ 1.744s
21
12
Nico Hülkenberg
Renault
1:23.272s
+ 1.866s
14
13
Jolyon Palmer
Renault
1:23.317s
+ 1.911s
34
14
Sergio Pérez
Force India
1:23.352s
+ 1.946s
43
15
Lance Stroll
Williams
1:23.403s
+ 1.997s
36
16
Romain Grosjean
Haas
1:23.567s
+ 2.161s
31
17
Kevin Magnussen
Haas
1:23.650s
+ 2.244s
20
18
Daniil Kvyat
Toro Rosso
1:24.253s
+ 2.847s
28
19
Marcus Ericsson
Sauber
1:24.894s
+ 3.488s
39
20
Pascal Wehrlein
Sauber
1:25.295s
+ 3.889s
25
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