The Friday in F1 Italian GP was a learning phase for all the drivers due to the changes made at Monza, which is why it made it a difficult scene.
It was a difficult run for all the drivers on Friday in F1 Italian GP at Monza due to the changes made to the circuit. The three corners which caught out many were Turn 1, Lesmo 2 and Parabolica, with the latter two seeing incidents causing red flag.
The Parabolica caught out Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli in just 10 minutes of his first FP1 session. It made life difficult for George Russell who not just missed FP1, but most of FP2 session as well and had to play a catch-up game all-through.
Teammate Lewis Hamilton had a better run and felt good after topping FP2. They were challenged by McLaren but Lando Norris didn’t feel the best despite ending up in the top half. He reckoned teammates Oscar Piastri had stronger pace than him.
The two F1 teams were seemingly quicker on one-lap pace than Ferrari and Red Bull. The Italian outfit had string of updates which felt good, at least much better than Zandvoort. But they were lacking bit of pace on the soft tyre for qualifying.
Both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz made similar comments. As for Red Bull, Max Verstappen couldn’t get his qualifying lap in but felt competitive overall, even though he concedes that they will have their work cut out to challenge their rivals.
Teammate Sergio Perez spent a large part in the garage in FP2 due to mechanical issues related to his gearbox and so his time was limited too. Aston Martin, meanwhile, remained in the bottom half of the Top 10 against other teams who sneaked in.
Norris: “I struggled a little bit today, probably more with the car in FP1 just with the low grip, I think everyone is probably going to say a similar thing. The track improved a lot for FP2 and I probably just didn’t progress as much as I needed to. The car’s quick, Oscar is very quick – he made a big mistake and probably lost four or five tenths, so he easily should’ve been P1. I’m quite a long way off, so a bit of work for me to do.”
Verstappen: “I just tried quite a few things today, and probably FP2 was initially not that great, but then it seemed like the long run was a little bit more competitive. It seems quite aggressive on tyres at the moment, they are opening up so quite interesting how that will evolve for the race as well. I think we have quite a few good directions to take with the car, just need to tidy it up a bit. I think it will be quite close, as you can see, between a lot of cars, and hopefully we can be in that mix. Just trying different set-up directions, because that’s at the end of the day what practice is for. Also things that we might want to learn a bit more about the car and that’s why we’re doing it. Still a bit of work to do to be really competitive,” the reigning world champion commented. But like I said, FP1 actually felt quite decent, FP2 maybe not as much in the beginning but then it felt a bit better in the long run, so now we just need to bring it all together to be in the mix for tomorrow.”
Hamilton: “It’s been a good day. Generally felt pretty good, it’s obviously the new tarmac that’s been a bit of a challenge and the kerbs, but the car felt good from the start. But going through FP1 there was a lot of graining, people were struggling with tyres – including us – and then we made some good changes over the break, and the car was feeling even better in the [second] session. Still some work to do on a few areas and a few things, and I think ultimately [in] the long run so we can go the distance – that’s the challenge at the moment. It was ridiculously roasting in our car and I’m not quite sure exactly [why] – I think down by the radiators there’s some leakage of hot air so, yeah, it was very hot, like sitting on the sauna with no shorts on kind of pain. [I’m] feeling good. It’s going to be really important the work we do tonight, that’s done back at the factory with the simulator and we just need to tread carefully with the set-up so we don’t put the car too far out of bed like we’ve done in the past.”
Leclerc: “It was quite a positive Friday, however there’s still some work to do as always and we cannot rely on a good Friday to have a good weekend overall. But it’s a good start, the feeling is quite nice, everything we brought to the car seems to be working as expected, which is always a good thing. Now we’ve just got to focus on the balance because it’s been a tricky day balance-wise; performance-wise we were pretty good, but balance-wise there are still some steps we can do in the right direction. We are closer than where we were in Zandvoort. However, again, I still feel like McLaren are strong and also Mercedes are very strong. We’ll have a lot of competition tomorrow, but we are more in the fight than in Zandvoort. That’s a good thing for Saturday and then hopefully on Sunday we’ll be strong too.”
Alonso: “Every circuit has its own character, and racing in Monza always feels special. The track was smoother and less bumpy than last year due to the new tarmac. A lot of data has been gathered in the two sessions, so we will now analyse it and review it corner by corner to try to maximise the potential on track for the car tomorrow.”
It was a good show from Kick Sauber and Haas in some ways on Friday. The former’s Valtteri Bottas felt to be in a better position and close to the Top 10 but it will be hard task to penetrate, as Zhou Guanyu did not enjoy the same as the Finn.
On Haas side, while Nico Hulkenberg felt much better in the car, teammate Kevin Magnussen made a mistake and crashed out in FP2 at Lesmo 2. The Dane had positive feeling with the car than Zandvoort, like the German before his off.
The opposite situation happened at Visa Cash App RB where Daniel Ricciardo felt good with the car and all in place, but teammate Yuki Tsunoda conceded that there is work to do. For Alpine, both Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon did not have a good run pace wise.
They note that they have to dig deep to be able to penetrate the Top 10 again. Williams’ Alexander Albon felt much better than Zandvoort, with Franco Colapinto having his first go as a full-time F1 driver, albeit taking a slower approach.
Bottas: “It’s always nice to be back racing in Monza, and to do so with a pretty straightforward, productive day. We went through our programme as expected, and this allowed us to work on finetuning our car between the two sessions. We definitely seem to be in a better place on this track compared to Zandvoort, and the feeling is that Monza suits our car better – it was nice for all the team to have a positive day after last weekend. We won’t get carried away, it’s still Friday, and it’s just Free Practice: we need to make some more improvements ahead of tomorrow. We expect everyone will make a step overnight, and we’ll need to make one too; if we achieve that, we’ll at least be able to get in the mix.”
Ricciardo: “It was a good day and the car felt strong. Monza’s a cool track, some circuits you enjoy more than others and this is one. It’s a bit different with the new asphalt, and as we saw with other drivers, grip can be a little hard to find. It’s challenging but fun. I’m happy with today and think we’ve built a good foundation for the weekend. There’s not much to change overnight, we understand the car and we’re in a good place. I felt a good level of comfort in the car, but there’s always something more to find.”
Colapinto: “It was great, I’m really happy about it. Luckily I could enjoy a lot today, more than going for lap times, I just tried to focus on myself and enjoy the day. It went quite well, I was quite careful in FP1, I just wanted to put the laps in. I’m starting to understand the tyre a little bit better but I still miss, you know, on long runs I’m trying to understand how to keep the tyre alive for longer. It was a good first day, of course we need to keep working in the car, try to make the car a bit more suitable for how I drive it. But we are going well, in FP2 I felt a lot more comfortable with the car, I was trying to drive it a little bit more on the limit and I was a bit more consistent and had a bit more confidence in the high speed. I am quite confident, I just need to find a bit more the limit, sometimes I push a little bit, sometimes I don’t carry enough speed or brake enough, so it’s about finding the limit a little bit more in the high speed. The tyre I think there is a sweet spot, which is very difficult to understand – if you are above that or below that, it’s a very fine window.”
Magnussen: “I lost it on entry into the corner carrying too much speed and had a moment on the rear. It was a pretty snappy moment, I wasn’t quick enough to catch it and spun off into the wall. Luckily, there isn’t a lot of damage to the car; we have to change the front wing, but we’ll go again. It’s not what you want to do, I missed out on my long run which always has useful data but we’ll make it work. Often with new tarmac there’s high grip but it’s very peaky grip – so when you have a moment – it’s going to be big and you have to be quick to react and catch it. We have a positive feeling with the car and with outright pace, but it’s so tight that it could turnaround so you have to be very clean and just nail it.”
Gasly: “This morning was tough and this afternoon, with the set-up work, it was looking better on the Medium tyres. However, we didn’t get to do a lap on the Soft tyres with a red flag and some traffic. I didn’t manage to do a representative lap on the softer compound, so I think that there is more to come tomorrow. As we expected on this track, we have no other choice than to be perfect for a chance to get into Q2 in Qualifying tomorrow and challenge the cars in front of us. There have been a few changes to the track and, on my side, it was just a matter of getting used to them but driving-wise it is very similar. The tarmac we will have to keep an eye on Sunday for degradation, I think that this is the biggest change to before. Tomorrow will be challenging but I’m confident that we can improve the car and find some more performance. The field is extremely tight, and we will have to be perfect tomorrow.”
Antonelli: “First FP1 done. Unfortunately it ended quite quickly because of the crash. It was quite a big one, around 52g. Really sorry to the team and George for making them work afterwards. Just a mistake by my side, just pushing a bit too much for the conditions and I should have built the run a bit more progressively. But definitely a lesson learned for next time. But I’m still really thankful to the team for making this possible, and still great to see all the tifosi out there, and to get the first laps with all the drivers on track. I’m not feeling super well at the moment, I’m just going to go back and try to rest and try to focus for the rest of the weekend, because there’s still some races to go [in Formula 2] and we’re going to still try and get a good result.”
Here’s how FP1 in F1 Italian GP panned out
Here’s how FP2 in F1 Italian GP panned out
Here’s details on Italian GP
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