Carlos Sainz was fastest in the third practice session for the Italian Grand Prix, the Ferrari driver set a 20.912 to go eight and a half hundredths faster than Max Verstappen. The times have looked close throughout but there remains questions about whether Red Bull can be beaten.
Verstappen was nearly half a second faster than the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, with the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc three hundredths further behind in fourth. Monza often is about fine margins given the high downforce and low drag nature, which means that the tow is so powerful in qualifying.
Sainz underlined the potential of Ferrari to perhaps challenge Red Bull in qualifying, but his Leclerc who is normally faster over a single lap lost out after going wide at Lesmo Two during his qualifying simulations.
That fact saw several teams using the tow in practice, however, they need to be careful not to trip over each other in qualifying. Fernando Alonso put his Aston Martin fifth, the Spaniard two hundredths behind Leclerc and ahead of George Russell by two-hundredths of a second.
Practice has been more difficult to read this weekend, the sport is experimenting with the ATA or alternative tyre allocation. Designed to cut costs and improve sustainably, the teams received two fewer set of tyres from Pirelli and are also forced to use all three compounds throughout the three qualifying stages.
That meant that rather than just completing soft-tyre qualifying simulations, they also had to consider bringing the hard and medium tyres into play to prepare for Q1 and Q2 respectively.
The top teams more likely to get into Q3 almost exclusively on soft-tyre pace for Q3 versus midfield teams less confident about their ability to survive Q1 and therefore paying extra attention to harder tyre running.
Lando Norris led the early soft tyre running ahead of Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Ferrari’s Sainz. Kevin Magnussen was seventh going a tenth faster than his Haas teammate Nico Hulkenberg. Alex Albon was ninth, the Williams driver nearly a tenth and a half faster than Sergio Perez.
However, Perez missed out on the late qualifying simulations due to an oil leak, which could prove costly leaving him over a second and a quarter off the pace. Monza is a circuit where you need rhythm and speed to unlock lap time.
Perez was nearly half a tenth faster than his former teammate Lance Stroll. The Canadian had a new power unit fitted following a fuel systems issue in FP2, he made up for no running on Friday by completing the most laps, he missed FP1 as Felipe Drugovich filled in.
Liam Lawson was twelfth just a thousandth faster than his Alpha Tauri teammate Yuki Tsunoda on the medium tyre. Oscar Piastri put his McLaren fourteenth going ahead of Logan Sargeant, Valtteri Bottas and Lando Norris. Norris failed to get a clean lap in on the soft tyres, leaving him a tenth and a quarter behind the Fin.
The two McLaren’s having minor dramas, the Englishman being badly held up in traffic and Piastri taking a trip across the gravel.
Esteban Ocon was eighteenth on hards after a low-key session for Alpine, ahead of Guanyu Zhou and teammate Pierre Gasly.
There was some more foreshadowing of potential traffic chaos in qualifying, with Alonso commenting on the team radio that the drivers that held him up on his hot lap “will have a bad surprise in qualifying”, referring to race control’s stricter use of minimum times on out-laps.
