Hamilton half a second clear of Verstappen in Italian GP FP1

With Monza hosting the second trail event of F1’s new sprint race format, the sole sixty-minute FP1 session before qualifying was hugely important for the teams to nail their car set-ups before the cars go into parc ferme.

Mercedes and Red Bull split their tyre strategies in opening practice, with Hamilton and teammate Valtteri Bottas sticking exclusively to mediums, while Verstappen and Sergio Perez set their fastest laps on softs.

On the yellow-walled Pirelli’s, Hamilton produced a 1m20.926s to finish 0.452s up on Verstappen, who split the Mercedes, a tenth clear of Bottas who was 0.525s adrift of his teammate’s benchmark.

Hamilton heads to Monza - a track he has five wins and seven pole positions at - three points behind Verstappen in the world championship standings.

Lance Stroll put his Aston Martin an impressive fourth, some seven-tenths off the pace, while 2020 Italian GP winner Pierre Gasly was fifth-fastest for AlphaTauri.

Sebastian Vettel was sixth in the other Aston Martin ahead of Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari, Fernando Alonso’s Alpine and Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren.

As has often been the case this season, Sergio Perez struggled to match the pace of his Red Bull teammate Verstappen as he completed the top 10, over a second down on Hamilton.

Both Charles Leclerc (11th) and Lando Norris (12th) had their quickest lap times deleted for track limits infringements.

Fresh from being announced as Hamilton’s new Mercedes teammate for 2022 earlier this week, George Russell was 17th-fastest, four-tenths clear of Williams stablemate Nicholas Latifi.

Haas’ rookie duo Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher finished at the very bottom of the FP1 timesheets in 19th and 20th.

Full results from opening practice at the 2021 F1 Italian Grand Prix.