Carlos Sainz sent the Tifosi home happy by going fastest for Ferrari in Practice 2 at the Italian Grand Prix.

The Spaniard posted a best time of 1m21.355s on soft tyres to lead his former teammate Lando Norris in a strong second for McLaren.

Sergio Perez completed the top three for Red Bull, but the Mexican would crash out in the final 10 minutes to put a dampener on an otherwise promising session.

FP2 Review

The session began with trouble for Lance Stroll, who pulled off with a power unit issue in his Aston Martin and triggered a red flag.

That left the Canadian hugely disadvantaged after he missed FP1 making way for reserve driver Felipe Drugovich.

When the track went green, Alex Albon jumped upto second on the soft tyre in his Williams, just 0.005s behind early pacesetter Verstappen.

Ferrari then upped the ante as Sainz and Leclerc dipped into the 1m21s on the medium compound with two-tenths in the Spaniard's favour.

Fernando Alonso ran the soft tyre for his first low-fuel run and went third, ahead of Sergio Perez in fourth on mediums.

Mercedes ran different setups on their two cars as Lewis Hamilton opted for more downforce compared to teammate George Russell.

But George's approach worked best as he sat seventh compared to Lewis in ninth, three-tenths behind with both on mediums.

A flurry of soft tyre runs came just after the halfway point with Sainz going fastest on his second flying lap, just 0.019s ahead of former teammate Lando Norris in second.

Perez remained the best-placed Red Bull in third, but his day ended in the gravel at Parabolica after sliding off during the long run.

Oscar Piastri backed up McLaren's strong pace in fourth as traffic hampered Max Verstappen's best lap in fifth and Leclerc dropped to sixth. 

Albon and Alonso slipped to seventh and eighth after completing their soft tyre run early, while Russell could do no better than ninth in the Mercedes.

Nico Hulkenberg was P10 for Haas with less than a second covering the top 10 drivers.

Teammate Kevin Magnussen was 11th ahead of Valtteri Bottas in 12th. Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda remain inseparable in 13th and 14th, followed by Esteban Ocon in 15th.

Logan Sargeant sat 16th, followed by Hamilton in 17th after not completing a soft tyre run.

Liam Lawson was 18th and Zhou Guanyu 19th as Stroll failed to set a time.