Mercedes’ dominance continued as Lewis Hamilton was almost a second clear of third place in Practice 2 at the Italian Grand Prix.
As teams conducted their first qualifying simulations, the fight for a slipstream once again led a lengthy traffic jam on the approach to Parabolica and the deletion of lap times also impacted the final standings.
But nothing would interfere with the German manufacturer as Hamilton posted a 1m20.192s to be a quarter of a second clear of teammate Valtteri Bottas.
Daniel Ricciardo would have been third in the Renault as the only other driver in the 1m20s, but just crept beyond the white line with all four wheels at the final corner causing his laptime to be deleted.
Instead, it was Lando Norris in third for McLaren, as he completed his flying lap much later than the rest following technical issues in the first half of the session.
Pierre Gasly was fourth as he continued AlphaTauri’s impressive day, a tenth clear of Max Verstappen in fifth for Red Bull.
Carlos Sainz was sixth ahead of Daniil Kvyat, with the two Racing Points of Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez eighth and 10th.
Ferrari looks to be on the fringes of the top 10 with Charles Leclerc ninth and Sebastian Vettel 12th, though did have lap times deleted for track limits.
Despite the improved speed, the SF1000 was proving a handful, particularly in the first Lesmo where both drivers had offs during the race simulation.
Antonio Giovinazzi was a solid 13th in the Alfa Romeo, even if that was slightly elevated by the track limits problems for Ricciardo and also Alex Albon in 14th.
Highlighting how close the group is behind Mercedes, however, a second was enough to cover Norris in P3 to Kevin Magnussen in P16.
At the back of the field, Williams’ draggy car appears to be much more of a disadvantage than at Spa with Nicholas Latifi and George Russell bringing up the rear, 0.6s slower than Grosjean in P18.
Full results from Practice 2 can be seen below:
