Lewis Hamilton was nearly half a second faster than title rival Max Verstappen in the first free practice session for the 2021 Italian Grand Prix and on slower tyres too. McLaren’s Lando Norris did briefly hold second but had his lap removed for track limits. Alfa Romeo-bound Valtteri Bottas set the third fastest time in the other Mercedes.
Scuderia Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz completed the Maranello team’s scheduled programme for this only practice session ahead of qualifying by running several race and quali simulations with different compounds, in order to identify the ideal setup for the rest and the weekend and get a general impression. With a few minutes to go until the end of the session, Carlos and Charles came out on track with the soft tyre in order to set some fast laps, but both drivers did not manage to capitalize on the fresh soft tyre with a clean lap, due to the traffic jam, as Charles also had his lap deleted due to going outside track limits at Parabolica. However, the Italian side does seem to struggle as compared to McLaren on a track where engine power is very important.
Lance Stroll set the fourth fastest time in the Aston Martin, with Pierre Gasly fifth behind in the AlphaTaur. Aston Martin teammate Sebastian Vettel was sixth fastest ahead of Carlos Sainz in the Ferrari, as Charles finished just outside the top ten, with a personal best lap time which was more than one second slower than Lewis Hamilton’s best time from FP1
Italian Grand Prix – Here are the complete results from free practice one ahead of this weekend’s 2021 F1 World Championship race at Monza.
Results (Classification):
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:20.926
Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing +0.452
Valtteri Bottas Mercedes +0.525
Lance Stroll Aston Martin +0.750
Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri +0.793
Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin +0.898
Carlos Sainz Scuderia Ferrari +0.988
Fernando Alonso Alpine +1.000
Daniel Ricciardo McLaren +1.077
Sergio Perez Red Bull Racing +1.113
Charles Leclerc Scuderia Ferrari +1.176
Lando Norris McLaren +1.177
Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo +1.344
Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri +1.604
Esteban Ocon Alpine +1.608
Robert Kubica Alfa Romeo +2.083
George Russell Williams Racing +2.166
Nicholas Latifi Williams Racing +2.516
Nikita Mazepin Haas +2.519
Mick Schumacher Haas +2.625
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