Slipstreams and Sunday rain key to teams’ qualifying plans

[gmsabu]

The Italian Grand Prix is shaping up to be not quite the stroll through the Parco di Monza that Ferrari might have hoped it would be after their strong showing at Spa.

Persistent showers made Friday a very uneven first day; encouragingly, the kind which are often followed by lively races. Charles Leclerc snatched a brief moment of dry running to post the day’s best time, a 1’20.978.

But then Lewis Hamilton, aided by a sniff of a tow from his team mate and dodging yet more rain drops, got within a tenth of that. Game on.

The good news for Ferrari was that each of their drivers bagged one of the fastest sector times. Hamilton was only quickest through the final part of the lap.

But as in Belgium the outcome of qualifying is likely to be strongly affected by who can get the best ‘tow’ from another car. A Spa this was so crucial drivers went to extreme lengths to get in position, which Hamilton later described as “dangerous”.

At Monza today the F2 qualifying session was red-flagged and abandoned as the 30-strong field got in each others’ way. Of course F1 drivers are greater in experience and fewer in number, but then the stakes are much higher, too.

Getting a good tow “was was a key play last year,” Hamilton recalled. “Everyone was in two or three seconds of each other to do a tow. And that’ll be the same again given that the car is even more affected by the tow.”

The other key consideration for teams will be how to configure their cars in the expectation that Sunday could be wet. “That’s probably the only real kind of dilemma we’ll face tonight,” said Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo.

“It looks pretty much dry tomorrow but then if it’s going to rain Sunday then do we really compromise all of that tomorrow for Sunday? We might make a few small compromises if Sunday definitely looks wet. But if it’s like 50% then you probably just build the fastest car for qualifying and then deal with it in the race.”

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

Longest stint comparison – second practice

This chart shows all the drivers’ lap times (in seconds) during their longest unbroken stint. Very slow laps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan, right-click to reset:

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Combined practice times

Pos	Driver	Car	FP1	FP2	Total laps
1	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’27.905	1’20.978	57
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’28.730	1’21.046	43
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1’30.507	1’21.179	58
4	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1’30.596	1’21.347	45
5	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda	1’30.100	1’21.350	40
6	Alexander Albon	Red Bull-Honda	1’29.025	1’21.589	49
7	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso-Honda	1’30.695	1’22.124	68
8	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari	1’35.980	1’22.153	51
9	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault	1’34.528	1’22.249	46
10	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso-Honda	1’29.960	1’22.260	62
11	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1’35.133	1’22.338	47
12	Carlos Sainz Jnr	McLaren-Renault	1’28.211	1’22.482	57
13	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’34.715	1’22.511	49
14	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari		1’22.523	39
15	Lance Stroll	Racing Point-Mercedes	1’33.976	1’22.706	41
16	Sergio Perez	Racing Point-Mercedes		1’22.882	37
17	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’32.848	1’23.065	57
18	Lando Norris	McLaren-Renault	1’28.450	1’23.561	39
19	Robert Kubica	Williams-Mercedes	1’37.816	1’23.737	41
20	George Russell	Williams-Mercedes	1’38.421	1’24.313	35

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