Leclerc leads McLarens after three red flags in wet practice

[gmsabu]Belgian Grand Prix winner Charles Leclerc denied McLaren a one-two in a rain-affected first practice session for the Italian Grand Prix.

The session began on a track which was wet enough for the first runners to use wet weather tyres, before switching to intermediates. However the conditions caught out several drivers and prompted some complaints about the tyres, notably from Max Verstappen, who described the lack of grip as “insane”.

Kimi Raikkonen was the first driver to hit the barrier. His Alfa Romeo snapped sideways halfway around the Parabolica, and he struck the barrier rear-first. The red flags made their first appearance as Raikkonen climbed from his car.

Around the same time Raikkonen crashed Carlos Sainz Jnr had a 360-degree spin in his McLaren at the exit of Ascari, in full view of Nico Hulkenberg. Sainz managed not to hit anything and returned to the pits.

But soon after the session restarted Sergio Perez lost control of his Racing Point at the same spot and couldn’t keep it out of the barriers. The RP19 sustained front and rear damage in the crash. That brought the red flags out again.

Pierre Gasly proved the third stoppage of the session, but without hitting anything. Driver after driver had already run wide at the Rettifilio chicane, but Gasly managed to swap ends in his Toro Rosso and end up perched on the kerb at the inside of turn two. With limited room to manoeuvre as other cars picked their way around, he took a while to extract himself from the situation, and race control threw a red flag in the meantime. Toro Rosso told Gasly to switch his engine off at one point, but he persevered and brought his car back to the pits.

The track continued to dry during the second half of the session. Bottas set the benchmark intermediate time with a 1’30.596, but in the final minutes a few drivers decided to risk runs on slicks. The Mercedes pair headed the times at this point, but with Lewis Hamilton stuck behind Sebastian Vettel at the end of the session, and Bottas spinning at the Rettifilio, they slipped down the order.

A flurry of fast times from the slick-shod drivers changed the final running order. Daniil Kvyat briefly went quickest, then Sainz moved to the top. The McLaren driver then lowered his best time by more than a second while Lando Norris moved up into third, raising the prospect of a rare Mclaren one-two.

Those hopes were dashed by Leclerc, who after taking a while to bring his medium compound tyres in, produced the quickest time of the session with his last lap.

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Pos.	No.	Driver	Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’27.905		20
2	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	McLaren-Renault	1’28.211	0.306	25
3	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Renault	1’28.450	0.545	23
4	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’28.730	0.825	11
5	23	Alexander Albon	Red Bull-Honda	1’29.025	1.120	19
6	26	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso-Honda	1’29.960	2.055	25
7	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda	1’30.100	2.195	11
8	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1’30.507	2.602	19
9	77	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1’30.596	2.691	11
10	10	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso-Honda	1’30.695	2.790	26
11	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’32.848	4.943	22
12	18	Lance Stroll	Racing Point-Mercedes	1’33.976	6.071	9
13	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault	1’34.528	6.623	10
14	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’34.715	6.810	7
15	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1’35.133	7.228	10
16	8	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari	1’35.980	8.075	7
17	88	Robert Kubica	Williams-Mercedes	1’37.816	9.911	12
18	63	George Russell	Williams-Mercedes	1’38.421	10.516	12
19	11	Sergio Perez	Racing Point-Mercedes
20	7	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari

First practice visual gaps

Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.

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2019 Italian Grand Prix

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