Hamilton comfortably quickest in sole practice session before qualifying

Lewis Hamilton comfortably led the sole practice session ahead of qualifying at Monza.

The Mercedes driver used a set of medium compound tyres to set the benchmark time of the first hour of running. He lapped the parkland circuit in 1’20.926, leaving him over two seconds off his record-setting pole position lap time of last year.

However he incurred the wrath of Esteban Ocon after getting in the Alpine driver’s way in the middle of the high-speed Ascari chicane late in the session.

Hamilton’s team mate Valtteri Bottas also favoured the medium tyre and went third-fastest, over half a second behind. The pair were separated by Max Verstappen, the championship leader four-tenths of a second off Hamilton’s pace despite running the soft rubber, the only compound drivers may use in this afternoon’s qualifying session.

Aston Martin pair Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel made it four Mercedes-powered cars in the top six. The consistently impressive Pierre Gasly separated them.

Despite a dramatic moment at the exit of Ascari, Carlos Sainz Jnr posted the seventh-quickest time in his Ferrari. The top 10 was completed by Alonso, Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez, the Red Bull six-tenths of a second off his team mate.

Yuki Tsunoda was even further behind his team mate, and signalled his unhappiness to Nikita Mazepin after being held up by the Haas driver early in the session. The Haas drivers ended the session slowest, though both were within half a second of the quickest Williams.

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2021 Italian Grand Prix first practice result

Pos.	No.	Driver	Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’20.926		28
2	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda	1’21.378	0.452	22
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1’21.451	0.525	29
4	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’21.676	0.750	23
5	10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri-Honda	1’21.719	0.793	28
6	5	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’21.824	0.898	26
7	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	1’21.914	0.988	26
8	14	Fernando Alonso	Alpine-Renault	1’21.926	1.000	24
9	3	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren-Mercedes	1’22.003	1.077	27
10	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull-Honda	1’22.039	1.113	23
11	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’22.102	1.176	25
12	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	1’22.103	1.177	27
13	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’22.270	1.344	26
14	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Honda	1’22.530	1.604	31
15	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	1’22.534	1.608	27
16	88	Robert Kubica	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’23.009	2.083	28
17	63	George Russell	Williams-Mercedes	1’23.092	2.166	31
18	6	Nicholas Latifi	Williams-Mercedes	1’23.442	2.516	30
19	9	Nikita Mazepin	Haas-Ferrari	1’23.445	2.519	23
20	47	Mick Schumacher	Haas-Ferrari	1’23.551	2.625	23

First practice visual gaps

Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.

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2021 Italian Grand Prix

• Who was to blame for Hamilton and Verstappen’s collision at Monza?
• Hamilton-Verstappen crash was ‘a racing incident, no danger’ – Alonso
• Hamilton pleased stewards “set a precedent”, Verstappen “doesn’t fully agree”
• Ricciardo didn’t need title rivals’ latest clash for stunning Monza win
• Why Verstappen’s grid penalty differed from Hamilton’s Silverstone sanction

Browse all 2021 Italian Grand Prix articles