Oscar Piastri therefore nipped ahead of Verstappen in fourth during the session that was twice halted, with Charles Leclerc, so far the slower of the two Ferrari cars throughout practice at Monza, sixth in front of the Tifosi.
Before any drivers could set a representative time in Friday’s second F1 session – the two Alfa Romeo cars had however completed initial laps well off the expected pace – the session was halted after it had barely begun due to Lance Stroll stopping his Aston Martin just past the Ascari chicane.
Having missed FP1 with Aston junior and reserve driver Felipe Drugovich driving his AMR23, Stroll was forced to stop at this point of the track with a fuel system issue.
Aston attempted to fire the car back up remotely, but Stroll was eventually forced to climb out as the red flags flew – these remaining in place until the restart with 10 minutes on the clock.
After this, Verstappen led the way with a 1m22.259s set on the medium tyres, before nearly 10 minutes later the Ferrari pair blitzed ahead – Sainz becoming the frontrunner with a 1m21.565s.
A long lull in action followed before the frontrunners headed out on the soft tyres – the Williams cars and Fernando Alonso had already sampled the red walled rubber early in FP2 – with the times set to tumble due to the softer compound being used and the track evolving fast.
The Ferrari pair led the way at this point just past the halfway point and looked to be set to gain, with Leclerc posting a personal best on the softs but still not toppling Sainz’s medium tyre time, with the Spaniard backing out of his first qualifying simulation run due to rear locking at the second chicane.
Source: Autosport