Hamilton tops F1 Italian GP second practice, Norris third
Lewis Hamilton led Valtteri Bottas to a Mercedes one-two in second practice for Formula 1’s Italian Grand Prix, ahead of Lando Norris in his McLaren.
Hamilton was 0.262s faster than Mercedes teammate Bottas during the qualifying simulation runs as he lapped to a 1m20.192s on the Soft tyre around the high-speed Monza circuit.
Norris was third-fastest and 0.897s down on the dominant Mercedes drivers, having been forced to run out of sync compared to his rivals after seeing his running hampered by an engine issue.
McLaren was able to rectify the problem to allow Norris to participate in the final 20 minutes of the session and the Briton took advantage of the improved track conditions to leap up to third late on.
As they were in the morning’s first practice session, the drivers practiced slipstreaming tactics which are expected to be a feature of qualifying on Saturday, just as they were last year with farcical scenes witnessed in the final runs of Q3.
Pierre Gasly continued his impressive recent form to finish fourth-quickest in his AlphaTauri, one tenth clear of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who recovered from his FP1 crash to take fifth.
Carlos Sainz was sixth in the second McLaren, with Daniil Kvyat once again featuring well inside the top 10 on what was an encouraging day of Friday practice for the Faenza squad.
Eighth went the way of Lance Stroll, who was the quickest Racing Point driver, ahead of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, teammate Sergio Perez and Renault’s Esteban Ocon.
Sebastian Vettel improved to 12th in second practice but nearly ended his session in the barriers after spinning his Ferrari at the first of the Lesmos, an accident that was almost mirrored by Leclerc as both drivers struggled to tame their tricky SF1000s.
The Italian outfit is expecting another difficult weekend at its home race after its struggles at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Antonio Giovinazzi was 13th ahead of Alex Albon, who had a laptime deleted in his Red Bull for abusing track limits.
Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo was a lowly 15th in the timesheets after being another driver to see his fastest laptime deleted for falling foul of track limits at the Parabolica.
The Haas pair of Kevin Magnussen (16th) and Romain Grosjean (18th) were separated by Kimi Raikkonen’s Alfa Romeo as Nicholas Latifi shaded teammate George Russell, with Williams once again propping up the order.
FULL RESULTS FROM SECOND PRACTICE FOR THE 2020 F1 ITALIAN GRAND PRIX.
