Lewis Hamilton topped the second practice session for the 2024 Italian Grand Prix, with Lando Norris chasing in second, and Carlos Sainz third.
However, it was tight field that Hamilton was leading, as the top 16 drivers were within one second, not to mention that the like of Max Verstappen did not actually show their pace.
Verstappen made a mistake on his flying lap on Soft tyres and had to abort, and after that, the Red flag caused by Kevin Magnussen's crash meant the triple Formula 1 Champion had to go straight into race simulations directly meaning he was 14th fastest at the end of the session.
Sergio Perez spent quite some time in the pits and was down the order as well, 15th fastest behind his teammate, while George Russell was sixth fastest also after missing over 20 minutes of the session as his car, crashed by Kimi Antonelli earlier was not ready when the lights went green.
Between Russell and Hamilton, the gap was filled by Norris in second, Carlos Sainz in third, Oscar Piastri in fourth and Charles Leclerc in fifth.
Williams rookie Franco Colapinto was 17th fastest, but less than two tenths slower than teammate Alex Albon who was in 13th.
A decent day for Mercedes, but they need to find out why the seats on both their cars were so hot, something both Hamilton and Russell were vocal about.
Buildup towards FP2
Verstappen set the fastest time in FP1, but given it was still the first session of the weekend, it is too soon to make any predictions, especially since McLaren and Ferrari were not far behind.
Valtteri Bottas surprised by making the top five, so will he continue that form in the Sauber? Or was it just an anomaly?
As for Mercedes, they were busy cleaning up the mess that their supposedly future star and 2025 F1 driver, Antonelli caused after binning Russell's W15 early on in the session.
That was definitely far from what both Mercedes and Antonelli had hoped for on what is supposed to be the latter's most important weekend of his motorsport career - making his F1 debut and then confirmed as a Mercedes driver for 2025.
As for the other rookie, Colapinto, he was was far from being spectacular, but then he was driving a Williams so hard to judge until qualifying and the gap to his teammate Alex Albon.
However, kudos for the Argentinian driver for keeping his nose clean, making sure his FW46 came back to the Williams' garage in one piece.
On to FP2 to see what that brings.
FP2 Session Highlights
The clear conditions continued into FP2, albeit in cooler conditions as track temperatures dropped to 43 degrees Celsius while air temperature was 34 degrees.
Mercedes were still working on Russell's Mercedes as other drivers were getting ready to jump into their cars just one minute before the green light was given.
The other driver, though, did not waste any time and head out on track to start their Friday afternoon practice session.
Except for Daniel Ricciardo, who was on Soft tyres at the start, all the other driver started the session with the Mediums.
Ten minutes into the session, Esteban Ocon messed up his braking into Turn 1 and ended up taking the chicane straight, the same thing happening with Hulkenberg moments later.
Up until then, Perez has not made any runs and as TV footage showed his RB20 taken apart and the team working on it.
Almost 15 minutes into the session and Russell remained in the garage watching the action from Toto Wolff's desk in the Mercedes garage.
Twenty minutes into the session, Hamilton, Norris, and Piastri led the way by being the first to switch on to the Soft tyres for the first qualifying simulations.
Norris and Piastri went top two, but Hamilton was only good for fourth, and complained about not having any tow on his hot lap.
A little over 20 minutes in the session, and Russell's Mercedes was finally fired up and the Briton was sent out on track for his first laps around Monza this weekend.
Russell, soon reported something moving around his cockpit on his outlap, while Verstappen lost control of his RB20 into Parabolica and aborted the lap.
Russell then reported that his seat was very hot, his engineer reporting that Hamilton was suffering from the same problem.
Halfway into the session show the Red flag raised as Magnussen beached his Haas after losing the rear and ended up in the barriers.
The session was restarted with less than 18 minutes remaining on the clock, and the teams started running their race simulations on the Medium tyres.
Several drivers had moments with lockups, namely Verstappen, Perez, Hamilton, and Fernando Alonso, at the chicanes and went straight.
Not much action towards the end as the teams ended the sessions with their race simulations.
How they finished
Hamilton's FP2-topping lap was a 1:20.738, 0.003s ahead of Norris in second while Sainz was 0.100s further down the road in third.
Piastri was fourth fastest, 0.120s off the pace and 0.034s ahead of Leclerc who was fifth in the second Ferrari.
Russell was sixth fastest, 0.348s slower than his teammate and 0.054s ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in the Haas, the German seventh fastest.
Ricciardo was eighth fastest in the VCARB, 0.562s down from the top and ahead of Alonso in ninth with Lance Stroll behind his teammate in tenth.
Bottas did not feature in the top ten, but was 11th fastest, not bad for a Sauber.
Italian GP FP2 Classification
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