MONZA, Italy — The top five cars were within .15 seconds of one another as Lewis Hamilton turned the quickest lap during the second practice session for Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix Friday afternoon at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza.
The Mercedes driver and seven-time world champion turned a quick lap of 1:20.738 to edge McLaren hotshoe Lando Norris by a mere .003 seconds.
“The car has felt good from the start,” Hamilton said. “There seemed to be some graining up and down the field in FP1 and people struggling with the tires. We made some solid changes ahead of FP2 and the car took a step forward in that final hour. There’s still some work for us to do overnight both here and at the factory, particularly around the long run, so we can be as competitive as possible over the rest of the weekend.”
Carlos Sainz was third for Ferrari, while Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) completed the top five.
Point leader Max Verstappen led the opening practice session, but fell to 14th quick during the final session.
“We tried quite a few things today, FP1 felt decent and then FP2 we had good learnings from the long run,” Magnussen said. “This track is aggressive on tires, so it will be quite interesting how the track will evolve for the race as well. We were trying different setups in both sessions but couldn’t get it locked. At the end of the day, that is what practice is for and we want to learn a bit more about the car. We have a few good directions to take with the setup, we just need to tidy everything up a bit. It is going to be quite close between a few teams, and hopefully we will be right in that mix tomorrow in qualifying.”
George Russell was sixth for Mercedes despite being late to the track after the crew repaired his car after reserve driver Kimi Antonelli crashed during the opening session.
Kevin Magnussen crashed his Haas F1 machine during the second practice.