The third practice for the Italian Grand Prix brought a very interesting course. The action was sleepy for the most part as the teams have to save tires this weekend, but at the very end they decided to pull fresh soft tires out of the garages and put in some interesting qualifying laps. The fastest time was set by the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz.
In the final minutes, it became clear to us that the teams plan to try a few laps on fresh softs. Mercedes was the first to start, and for a while Lewis Hamilton took the lead. George Russell again confirmed his slight loss to his teammate, but at least one black car managed to beat Verstappen’s time from the start of practice.
However, Max was coming out on the track on a fresh set of soft tires at the time and he just washed away Hamilton. The Dutchman returned to the lead with a lead of almost half a second, which Lewis bewilderedly commented by saying: “I don’t know where to find half a second.”
At the same time as Verstappen, Fernando Alonso also tried his luck, but his Aston Martin was not enough for Verstappen or Hamilton. However, the home team had the last word.
Ferrari also sent both of its drivers on to the track on fresh soft tires and Carlos Sainz moved ahead of Verstappen by less than a tenth. Charles Leclerc also had a very good lap, who was faster than Sainz in the first sector, but was wide in Lesma 2 and did not finish his attempt. At the second attempt, the tires were already at their best and it was “only” enough for Charles to take fourth place. However, he drove an almost identical time to the third Hamilton.
“I think the threat from Ferrari is real,” evaluated the situation at the end of the training session by the former pilot and Sky Sports TV expert Anthony Davidson. Well, we are very curious about the qualifications.
We must not forget another dark horse – the Williams team. Alex Albon is listed in ninth place on the leaderboard, but don’t be fooled. The native of London drove his personal best on hard tires, which means that if we deduct seven tenths from his time, we have him in the best four.
In the end, Sergio Pérez did not get the opportunity to react to this development, as Red Bull had to withdraw him from training early due to an oil leak. The mechanics of this team will first of all have to put together the single-seater before the start of the qualification, which starts at 16:00.
FOM
2023-09-02 11:55:01
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