Italian GP: Carlos Sainz fastest from Lando Norris in tightly-packed Monza practice, with Lewis Hamilton only 17th

It could be an extremely competitive weekend at Monza after Carlos Sainz edged out Lando Norris in the second practice session;watch final practice on Saturday at 11:30am, with qualifying at 3pm and lights out for the race on Sunday at 2pm – all live on Sky Sports F1

Carlos Sainz led a closely-fought second practice at the Italian Grand Prix on his 29th birthday from Lando Norris to give Ferrari a confidence boost on home soil.

Sainz, who was second behind Max Verstappen in the opening practice session, set the fastest times on the medium and soft tyre runs to underline Ferrari’s strong pace at Monza.

Norris was just 0.019s behind the Spaniard, with Sergio Perez another 0.166s down on the pace-setter after receiving a handy slipstream from Verstappen at the end of the lap. However, on the race runs, Perez spun at the final corner and nudged the barrier, before getting beached in the gravel which caused a red flag.

In the qualifying simulations, Perez returned the slipstream favour on the home straight for Verstappen’s fastest lap, but the championship leader suggested he didn’t want to give his Red Bull team-mate a tow again because it didn’t give him a “proper read” over one lap.

Verstappen, who is looking to break Sebastian Vettel’s record of nine straight wins with victory on Sunday, ended up in fifth, in between Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc as the top six were separated by less than four tenths of a second.

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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner responds to Lewis Hamilton’s claim that Max Verstappen has not had the challenge of racing against strong team-mates

Alex Albon’s fastest time was on the mediums, which put him in seventh place and 0.624s behind Sainz, with Fernando Alonso in eighth.

Mercedes had a difficult Friday afternoon with George Russell in ninth and Lewis Hamilton only 17th. Hamilton was told by his engineer Peter Bonnington he was mostly losing time on the straights to his Mercedes team-mate.

Lance Stroll only completed one lap all day due to a car failure as he was stuck in eighth gear before grounding to a halt at Turn 10, the Ascari Chicane.

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Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll brings out an early red flag in Practice 2 and then attempts to fire the car back up before being pushed off track by the marshals

Stroll was replaced by Formula 2 champion Felipe Drugovich in first practice as Aston Martin took the opportunity to run their test driver as part of F1’s regulations that each team must use another driver in practice twice in a season.

The Alternative Tyre Allocation is being used this weekend, which means each driver only has 11 sets of tyres for the whole event, rather than 13.

After some limited practice running at the Hungarian Grand Prix, when this format was first used, most teams were able to largely run their normal programme in the second session, so Ferrari and McLaren’s pace compared to Red Bull is genuine going into final practice at 11.30am on Saturday and qualifying at 3pm.

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Lewis Hamilton says Max Verstappen has not had the challenge of racing against strong team-mates during his and Red Bull’s period of dominance in the sport

Sky Sports F1’s live Italian GP schedule

Saturday 2 September
8.20am: F3 Sprint Race
11.15am: Italian GP Practice Three (session starts at 11.30am)
1.10pm: F2 Sprint Race
2.10pm: Italian GP Qualifying build-up
3pm: Italian GP Qualifying
4.45pm: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook

Sunday 3 September
7.10am: F3 Feature Race
8.15am: F2 Feature Race
12.30pm: Grand Prix Sunday: Italian GP build-up
2pm: THE ITALIAN GRAND PRIX
4pm: Chequered Flag: Italian GP reaction
5pm: Ted’s Notebook

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