Good start for Sainz and Alonso in Free Practice 1 of the Italian F1 GP

Verstappen is the favorite house of Ferrari. There is no doubt about that, and for now, the Dutchman started the Italian F1 Grand Prix by marking the ground in the first free practice at Monza, leading the session with 1’22″657. He did it, however, with Carlos Sainz stuck behind the wheel of his Ferrari SF23, just 46 thousandths off the time set by the Dutchman. It was a good start for Carlos, who beat Pérez (3rd, 0″177 behind Max) and Leclerc ( 4th, 0″309 behind the best time trial), with Russell 5th. Also for Fernando Alonso, 6th with his Aston Martin at 0″557. But it is too early to draw conclusions. Everyone saved their tires and it shows how much everyone saves for the rest of the weekend that the first 5 drivers set their times on the hard rubber, while Alonso only focused on use of soft tires. No one wants to waste tires uselessly and the first session was pure adaptation, aerodynamic tests, configuration changes, data collection and analysis of the minimum load wings used at Monza in search of the highest possible speed on long stretches this.

At the ‘Temple of Speed’, the Ferrari is expected to be very fast due to its excellent engine power, straight line speed and single lap potential. At Aston Martin they already pointed out to MD this Friday that Ferrari will be very strong here. Everyone has placed them as favorites to lead the evenly matched chasing group after Red Bull, and at the moment, even without squeezing their potential fully and not knowing the cards each other holds, in once Ferrari started on a very good footing.

Sainz was the best of the ferraristas who started on a good note on the day of his 29th birthday at a circuit where he wanted the podium he deserved last year, when he went from 18th to 4th in just 13 laps with devilish pace. Carlos was ahead of Charles, very close to Max. The question is whether Ferrari, squeezing its engine to the maximum, will be able to put Verstappen on the ropes in the fight for pole position. For now, those in red are there on a track that is still unrepresentative, very green, where the Maranello team is focused on reducing the rebound on the straight (porpoising) where they started the day and on making the test coming in too. easy to use to collect data for next year’s car.

Alonso, 6th to start

Fernando Alonso arrived at Monza in anticipation, to see if the step forward introduced by the new improvements at Zandvoort for his car would also help Aston Martin be more competitive on a track with so many straights. “I came without a specific goal. I wanted to go out on the track, to see how the car behaves. At the beginning of the year Monza was on the calendar as a worrying circuit, because Aston Martin is a very fast car in the corners and slow on the straights, which is our big deficit. And it’s true that we’ve changed a lot in the car. I hope we’ve improved the top speed, but it’s still a circuit that we fear, in some ways “, said of Asturian.

For this circuit, Aston Martin brought a new, minimal-load, Monza-specific wing. Canada’s low-load wing is unusable. They brought out something new and part of the work of the first session had to focus on collecting data and analyzing this new wing and how it affected the rest of the rear of the car. For this reason, Alonso drove loosely at the rear during this part of the Free 1 sessions, working only with a set of medium tires so as not to use more tires to save them for the rest of the end of the week. That prevented him from going for good times at the end because of the rubber damage, but he completed a good start, with a good 6th position, a lap in 0″557. Of course, with more good rubber than the first 5, who made their chronos with hard

Only 7 tenths in the top 11

The Ferrari seems to be in better shape on this track, which suits the red car better, but step by step. Aston Martin has completed all the planned work, including an important test of the new floor and diffuser they launched at Zandvoort to understand their adaptation to such a reverse circuit. Alonso also made a change to the angle of the front wing in search of more answers and completed the session without complications, ticking all the boxes in his program and without problems with the rebound of the car on the straight.

From here, it will be necessary to see if the Aston Martin manages to stay there as other single-seaters show better performance. The chasing zone against Red Bull is very tight and any detail can make the difference. So in the first 11 there is only 0″789 difference. And between the 5th, Russell, and the 11th, only two tenths. Any tenth can give you 4 or 5 positions. Likewise what should happen in qualifying Time to improve the engines this Friday to give it all tomorrow.

In that chasing group, Norris was 7th at 0″584, with Hamilton 8th at 0″612 and Tsunoda 9th at 0″614. Albon completed the Top-10, with a Williams that should also fight for Q3. Piastri was 11th in his McLaren at 0″789.