Friday Report - Carlos Sainz quickest

Carlos Sainz
© Ferrari

Peter Habicht

Carlos Sainz was fastest for Ferrari in today's second free practice at Monza with a 1m21.355s lap in a session which saw teams getting the most out of their soft and medium tires. Lando Norris was second fastest for McLaren, just 0.019s behind the Spaniard, with Red Bull's Sergio Perez third 0.185s off the lead. Norris teammate Oscar Piastri split the Red Bull teammates, just 0.005s behind Perez.

Perez had been running third fastest, 0.091s ahead of teammate Max Verstappen in the final 10 minutes of the session when he understeered at Curva Alboerto, (renamed from Parabolica), going wide on the final turn's exit and ending his run in the gravel.

Earlier in the session, Verstappen told the team he felt he hadn't been getting a good enough 'read' between the car and circuit, as teams have been focusing on run plans and tire life at this point in the weekend. He was fifth fastest in today's session.

Sainz teammate Charles Leclerc was sixth overall, followed by Williams' Alex Albon, Aston's Fernando Alonso, Mercedes' George Russell and both Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnusseen, who improved on Haas' running earlier this afternoon from 16th and 19th to 10th and 11th.

Valtteri Bottas was 12th fastest for Alfa, followed by Pierre Gasly's Alpine, Yuki Tsunoda's Alpha Tauri and Gasly teammate Esteban Ocon. Logan Sargeant was 16th fastest for Williams while Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton was 17th, running a higher drag setup as part of the team's run plan.

Alpha Tauri's Liam Lawson was 18th ahead of Alfa Romeo's Guanyu Zhou and Aston's Lance Stroll, whose car experienced a fuel system issue in the opening few minutes before he was able to set a time.

Tomorrows' free practice three begins at 12:30p.