Sainz Italian GP FP2 – Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz topped the time-sheets in an interrupted FP2 session at the Italian GP with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen splitting the Scuderia duo in second as Charles Leclerc completed the top three in the other F1-75 entry.
Sainz posted the benchmark of a 1:21.664 on the C4 red side-walled compounds after a brief red flag period and was 0.143 seconds ahead of points leader Verstappen and Leclerc a further 0.193 seconds adrift of the Spaniard.
The second 60-minute session got underway with glorious sunny conditions at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza with most of the grid running the C3 yellow-marked medium tyres.
Sainz posted the initial pace with a 1:23.156 before Verstappen jumped into P1 which was 0.135 seconds faster than the Ferrari driver.
Sainz’s Ferrari team-mate Leclerc then moved to the top on a 1:22.307, but Verstappen rounded out the opening ten minutes of action as the front-runner with a 1:22.303 effort.
Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas sat in the garage for majority of the opening ten minutes but emerged towards the end of it as a front-runner on the softs.
The Finn, who is one of six drivers, alongside Sainz and Verstappen face a grid drop for Sunday’s Grand Prix, moved up to fourth on a 1:22.993 on his soft rubber flyer.
With 43 minutes remaining, the track became emptied as the rest of the pack switch to the softer compounds for their qualifying simulation runs.
Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon ended the opening stints as the fastest hard runner in tenth place with a 1:23.664.
Verstappen’s soft tyre tour was abandoned when he ran wide into Variante Del Rettifilo after locking up, forcing the Dutchman to set his 1:21.807 on his second hot-lap when the rubber was past its optimum.
Just as he registered that lap, the yellow flags were waving for Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher, who’s VF-22 came to a halt at the exit of the Variante Della Roggia Chicane having reported a power-unit issue.
This brought out the red flag, whilst his VF-22 racer was removed, with the circuit going green with 25 minutes left off the clock.
The qualifying simulation runs continued when the session returned to green, with Sainz setting a 1:21.664 to bump Verstappen off top spot as the Dutchman switched back to the mediums for a longer race run.
Verstappen remained in second place in-front of Leclerc, who posted a 1:21.857 on his C4 red-branded softer compounds to wind up 0.193 seconds off.
McLaren’s Lando Norris was fourth ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell who placed fifth whilst Sergio Perez followed in sixth place.
The second Silver Arrows F1 W13 entry of Sir Lewis Hamilton took seventh in the order in-front of Alpine pairing Ocon and Fernando Alonso as Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon, who ran off at the Ascari Chicane in the closing stages – completed the top ten.
In the long race data-gathering runs, Verstappen was 0.35 seconds quicker on average than Sainz on the medium compounds, whilst Leclerc on the softer tyre was 0.25 seconds faster than the Red Bull.
McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo finished Free Practice Two outside the top 10 in 11th place and in-front of Alfa Romeo duo Zhou Guanyu and Bottas who placed in 12th and 13th in the classification.
Scuderia AlphaTauri pairing Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda ended the day 14th and 15th with Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen 16th.
Aston Martin duo Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll were 17th and 18th respectively as Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi and the aforementioned Schumacher brought up the rear.
You can see the full Formula 1 Pirelli Gran Premio D’Italia 2022 Free Practice 2 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1120/italy/practice-2.html
In the earlier FP1 session it was a Ferrari one-two with Leclerc leading from team-mate Sainz and the two Mercedes followed with Russell third and Hamilton fourth as Driver’s Championship points leader Verstappen rounded out the top five. You can see the full Formula 1 Pirelli Gran Premio D’Italia 2022 Free Practice 1 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1120/italy/practice-1.html
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