Mercedes were off the pace in second practice in Monza as Carlos Sainz topped the timesheet for Ferrari; watch final practice on Saturday at 11:30am, with qualifying at 3pm and lights out for the race on Sunday at 2pm - all live on Sky Sports F1
Saturday 2 September 2023 11:10, UK
Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have admitted they are uncertain of making it through to the final part of Italian Grand Prix Qualifying on Saturday after an unconvincing display in Friday practice.
The British pairing, who both had contract extensions until the end of 2025 confirmed on Thursday, appeared to be in solid shape after finishing fifth and eighth in the opening session of the weekend.
However, Russell could only manage ninth in Practice Two, with Hamilton down in 17th after giving up crucial running time to change his car's setup midway through the session.
With McLaren and Williams having shown the potential to advance to Q3, Hamilton and Russell are wary of facing a major challenge to make the top 10.
"(It was a) pretty similar Friday to most Fridays," Hamilton said. "It started off really well in P1, I was genuinely quite happy with the car and then we made changes, and usually when you go into P2, we can't figure out why, but the car seems to be more of a challenge in P2.
"We're just going through the data now and I'm sure it's something we can rectify overnight.
"We've got 1000 things we can change - it's just knowing which ones those are and what the actual real issues are - whether it's mechanical, whether it's tyre temperatures, aero-balance - we're going to figure it out tonight.
"I'm hoping to get into the top 10, getting into Q3 would be nice, and then we'll see where it goes from there.
"With our current pace, I don't know how easy it will be to get into Q3. That's what we'll be working on overnight.
"I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed and hope that we can get there."
Russell, who trails Hamilton 7-6 in their qualifying head-to-head this season, shared his team-mate's concerns.
"I think it's really close, as always at the moment, between McLaren, Aston, Ferrari and even Williams are getting in the mix, especially on Saturday.
"So we're going to have to really nail it, I think even to get to Q3 is going to be a tight battle.
"If you nail it, you could be second row of the grid, if you just don't quite nail it, you could be down in P8, P10 region, so that's exciting."
While far too experienced to get excited about the results of a Formula 1 Friday, even Carlos Sainz had to admit "it cannot get much better than that" after he set the pace on his 29th birthday around his Ferrari team's home track.
He was especially relieved to find that the SF-23 was clearly handling much better than it did in the Netherlands last weekend.
"It was a smooth day, to be honest," said Sainz. "It's great to be back in a track like Monza and from the first lap of FP1 to feel the car normal again after such a difficult weekend in Zandvoort.
"As soon as we put the car on track here for some reason it just adapted a lot better and it was a lot easier to set up and drive it per corner. It doesn't mean that we are going to be P1 tomorrow and in the race, but at least the feeling is much better."
“Whether they can win the race or not, I’m unsure on that one, but they will certainly have a much better car here than they did in Zandvoort. That’s without question. We have seen good performances from them here last year. The car hasn’t evolved that much since that time in terms of its philosophy, the car does perform well in a straight line - we saw that in Montreal and we have plenty of that here – so I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t be the next best team to Red Bull around this track."
But while not wanting to put a complete dampener on the significance of the practice results for the legion of home Italian fans - "dreaming is for free, no one can take it away from us" - Sainz also admitted: "Being realistic, also looking at our race pace, that's when we started seeing the true pace of the Red Bull.
"They were clearly again three tenths-half a second ahead in race pace and over 50-something laps, that's a lot of lap time."
Red Bull therefore remain favourites for the weekend in which Max Verstappen is going for a record 10th successive win. But it's also true that the runaway champions have experienced more straightforward Fridays this year too.
Verstappen was quickest in the opening session but slipped to fifth in the afternoon after encountering traffic on his qualifying simulations.
"We have been trying a few different wing levels and I think we need to analyse a bit what way to go, it's sometimes a bit of a tricky thing around Monza," said Verstappen.
"From my side, it probably could have been a little bit better - just fine-tuning a bit from low speed to high speed. But I'm quite confident, of course, we will get there and it was interrupted in FP2 to get a proper read on a few things, so still a bit of work to do."
Asked about the threat that could be posed by Ferrari, the world champion replied: "We will have to wait and see until everyone ramps up their engines as well. From our side, we can do a better job but it's not the end of the world as well."
Sergio Perez actually finished as the lead Red Bull runner in third place despite ending the day beached in the gravel at Parabolica after spinning off in the closing minutes at the fast final corner.
But despite the crash, the Mexican was upbeat about his progress to that point.
"The positives are the car is performing well and I'm feeling comfortable with it," he said. "I think we are in a good position for the rest of the weekend, I felt we had a really strong Friday."
Indeed, Perez added: "This has been the best Friday in a while for us."
Saturday 2 September
8.20am: F3 Sprint Race
11.15am: Italian GP Practice Three (session starts at 11.30am)
1.10pm: F2 Sprint Race
2.10pm: Italian GP Qualifying build-up
3pm: Italian GP Qualifying
4.45pm: Ted's Qualifying Notebook
Sunday 3 September
7.10am: F3 Feature Race
8.15am: F2 Feature Race
12.30pm: Grand Prix Sunday: Italian GP build-up
2pm: THE ITALIAN GRAND PRIX
4pm: Chequered Flag: Italian GP reaction
5pm: Ted's Notebook
All sessions from the Italian GP will be live on Sky Sports F1 throughout the weekend. Stream F1 on Sky Sports with NOW for just £26 a month for 12 months. Cancel anytime
