Sainz fastest in second practice at Monza

Carlos Sainz’s Italian Grand Prix preparation took a positive turn as the birthday man ended second practice at Monza fastest of the 20-strong Formula 1 grid in front of the loyal Tifosi with a time of 1:21.355s.

Max Verstappen could only manage fifth as he was interrupted by traffic on his qualifying simulation run partway through the session.

FP2 was bookended by a pair of Red Flag incidents, instigated by Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez.

Read More: F1 2023 Italian GP — FP2 Results

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The session was barely three minutes old before the Red Flag came out after Stroll’s Aston Martin ground to a halt just after the Ascari chicane, with the AMR23 getting stuck in eighth gear.

The issue ended Stroll’s session and given Felipe Drugovich took his place in opening practice, the Canadian has had little to no preparation heading into tomorrow.

The stoppage cost the remainder of the grid approximately eight minutes and a queue formed at the the end of pit lane with drivers raring to get going once again.

Verstappen quickly went to the top of the timesheets on the medium tyre with Williams’ Alex Albon posting a time just 0.059s back on the soft tyre.

It didn’t take long for traffic to become an issue, with Oscar Piastri having to take evasive action to avoid a dawdling Lewis Hamilton and a bunch of cars queuing on the back straight, an ominous precursor to what we could be seeing in Qualifying tomorrow.

Sainz then took his place at the top of timesheets, pushing the pace on the medium tyre, with his teammate Charles Leclerc taking second.

Fernando Alonso cycled through to third before the half-hour mark, with Lewis Hamilton bemoaning his lack of straight-line speed over team radio.

The Mercedes driver would spend the majority of the session playing with wing levels and languishing near the bottom of the timesheet, ultimately ending the session in 17th place.

It was then time for more of the front-running teams to run the soft tyre and Perez ascended to the top of the times with his first flying lap on the faster rubber.

Verstappen could only manage third with his first run on the soft, complaining over team radio about heavy traffic in sector 2.

The Dutchman asked to go for another run to “get a better read,” but was told by his engineer to box as “it’s not qualifying.”

Amid Verstappen’s frustration, the pace was pushed further, with Lando Norris and then Sainz taking to the top of the timesheet and as the soft tyre runs relatively came to an end for the majority of the field, the top-five was Norris, Sainz, Perez, Oscar Piastri and Verstappen.

With just under 10 minutes remaining Perez spun off and into the gravel at Parabolica, bringing out the Red Flag once again.

The Mexican experienced understeer mid-corner and couldn’t correct course in time before running off and ending his session early.

FP2 resumed with four minutes remaining, but it was Sainz who would hold onto the top spot, just 0.019s ahead of Norris.

Perez held onto third ahead of Piastri in fourth place and Verstappen in fifth.

Leclerc ended the session in sixth, 0.361s back from his Ferrari teammate, with Albon finishing a respectable seventh in the FW45.

Alonso and George Russell finished eighth and ninth respectively with Nico Hulkenberg rounding out the top-10.

The Italian Grand Prix weekend continues with Free Practice 3 tomorrow at 12:30 local time (11:30 BST).