Leclerc leads Ferrari one-two as practice begins at Monza

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Charles Leclerc headed Ferrari team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr for the opening practice session for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

Just 0.077s separated the Ferraris at the top of the times, who were two-tenths of a second quicker than the Mercedes of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. Max Verstappen was fifth-fastest in the Red Bull.

Despite forecasts indicating a risk of rain, there were clear skies when the session began with air temperature in the mid 20Cs. For this opening session of the weekend, two drivers stepped in as guests for the opening hour. Nyck de Vries made his third Friday appearance of the season for as many teams, stepping into Sebastian Vettel’s Aston Martin, while Ferrari reserve and former Alfa Romeo driver Antonio Giovinazzi returned to the paddock to step into Mick Schumacher’s Haas.

After missing Thursday’s media commitments on the advice of doctors, Pierre Gasly was cleared for action for AlphaTauri. He was called into the pits during his opening run due to an undisclosed problem with his car, but would later return to the circuit.

Red Bull’s periodic DRS problems recurred during the session. Sergio Perez’s DRS began flapping when he deployed it on the 330km/h main straight on the run to the Rettifilo chicane. However, he was able to continue on his run without interruption.

After the first 20 minutes of running, the track fell silent as teams pitted to collect data and change settings. Verstappen sat atop the times with a 1’22.853, before Leclerc beat that time on the soft tyres by almost half a second just before the halfway point in the session. Alexander Albon demonstrated Williams’ low-downforce performance by jumping to third fastest, albeit over a second slower than Leclerc.

Verstappen tried to beat the Ferrari’s time, but was frustrated when he caught Lando Norris at Alboreto (Parabolica) before starting his lap, the McLaren driver refusing to give up track position to the Red Bull. Sainz headed back out on track after Ferrari changed his entire floor on his car to move to second place, less than a tenth behind his team mate.

The two Mercedes moved of Russell and Hamilton moved into third and fourth places respectively on soft tyres, despite Russell complaining about poor braking performance of his car as he wrestled it to a stop at Rettifilo. In the final minutes, Russell also had a scare at the Roggia chicane, when he almost hit the rear of Sainz’s car as he exited the corner to pass the Ferrari driver who had backed off.

De Vries had a brief trip across the gravel at Ascari after locking up into the high speed chicane. Soon after, Sainz followed the Aston Martin stand-in by making a near-identical error, putting his new floor under an impromptu stress test.

There were no time improvements at the front of the field in the final phase of the session, leaving Leclerc as the fastest overall at the chequered flag, just ahead of Ferrari team mate Sainz. The two Mercedes of Russell and Hamilton ended the session in third and fourth, with Verstappen fifth in the Red Bull.

Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso completed the opening session in sixth and seventh plaecs for Alpine, with Yuki Tsunoda in eighth and Daniel Ricciardo and Alexander Albon completing the top ten. Giovinazzi and De Vries ended their sessions down in 18th and 19th, respectively.

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2022 Italian Grand Prix first practice result

Position	Number	Driver	Team	Model	Time	Gap	Laps
1	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	F1-75	1’22.410		25
2	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	F1-75	1’22.487	0.077	23
3	63	George Russell	Mercedes	W13	1’22.689	0.279	27
4	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	W13	1’22.831	0.421	24
5	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	RB18	1’22.840	0.430	27
6	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	A522	1’23.075	0.665	28
7	14	Fernando Alonso	Alpine-Renault	A522	1’23.099	0.689	26
8	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	AT03	1’23.260	0.850	26
9	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C42	1’23.394	0.984	27
10	3	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL36	1’23.511	1.101	26
11	23	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	FW44	1’23.529	1.119	24
12	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C42	1’23.570	1.160	28
13	10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	AT03	1’23.640	1.230	27
14	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	RB18	1’23.661	1.251	21
15	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR22	1’23.688	1.278	28
16	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL36	1’23.856	1.446	27
17	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	VF-22	1’24.006	1.596	24
18	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	Haas-Ferrari	VF-22	1’24.317	1.907	25
19	34	Nyck de Vries	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR22	1’24.731	2.321	22
20	6	Nicholas Latifi	Williams-Mercedes	FW44	1’24.941	2.531	24

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