Carlos Sainz Tops Friday Practice For 2022 Italian Grand Prix – Sport Grill

Roundup of FP1 and FP2 as Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz emerged fastest in Friday Practice for 2022 Italian Grand Prix.

Ferrari enjoyed a strong start to their home race weekend as Charles Leclerc topped FP1 but Sainz emerged fastest overall across both Friday Practice sessions, after the Spaniard topped FP2 despite being handed a back of grid start for the race following several power unit element changes.

Now, here is a full roundup of FP1 and FP2 at Autodromo Nazionale Monza.

FP1

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Nyck De Vries who is participating in his third FP1 session this season was first out as he this time drove for Aston Martin, in place of Sebastian Vettel for this session only.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen however soon set the pace on hard tyres with 1m 25.230 in the fifth minute but soon was displaced by Sergio Perez then Fernando Alonso, although he soon assumed control and eventually lowered his benchmark to 1m 22.853 at end of the opening stint.

AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda was second quickest heading into the Qualifying simulations after he ran his opening stint on the soft tyre, whilst others opted for a mixture of hard or medium tyres.

Leclerc eventually topped the session with a 1m 22.410 set in the 29th minute right at the start of the Qualifying simulations on soft tyres, ahead of Carlos Sainz in a Ferrari one-two ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.

Verstappen finished fifth-fastest after he only found 0.013 seconds on his soft-tyre flier after he was impeded through the final sector by McLaren’s Lando Norris.

De Vries finished 19th fastest ahead of Williams’ Nicholas Latifi, whilst Antonio Giovinazzi replaced Mick Schumacher at Haas and finished 18th quickest, although Giovinazzi doesn’t qualify as a mandatory young driver for Haas after spending three seasons at Alfa Romeo.

FP2

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Sainz was first out on track on medium tyres and proceeded to set the initial benchmark time of 1m 23.156 but Verstappen went 0.135s quicker in the fifth minute, although he was soon displaced two minutes later as Leclerc posted 1m 22.307 to go top.

Verstappen immediately hit back a minute later to go fastest by 0.004s from Leclerc and Sainz at end of the opening stints, as drivers soon switched focus to the soft tyre Qualifying simulations.

Norris was amongst early drivers to improve as he went third fastest in the 26th minute just three minutes before the red flag was deployed, after Haas’ Schumacher suffered a power unit issue out of Variante della Roggia on his return after skipping FP1.

The session resumed seven minutes later and Sainz ultimately emerged fastest out once the Qualifying simulations were completed, having posted 1m 21.664 in the 39th minute to top the session ahead of Verstappen and Leclerc with Norris and Russell rounding out the top five.

Race simulations followed without much issues except for reports of bouncing issues for both Mercedes drivers – Russell and Hamilton.