Italian Grand Prix: Carlos Sainz gives Ferrari P1 in FP2, trouble for Stroll and Perez

Carlos Sainz went fastest for Ferrari in second practice for the Italian Grand Prix, pipping former McLaren team-mate Lando Norris to top spot in the session.

Sergio Perez went third quickest for Red Bull, but his session ended early after sliding off into the gravel at Curva Michele Alboreto late on, with Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen rounding out the top five.

Lance Stroll, meanwhile, was out of the session within a couple of minutes of the session beginning, as the Aston Martin driver suffered a fuel system issue that stopped him from running.

Carlos Sainz tops Italian Grand Prix FP2, Lance Stroll out with fuel system issue

After running a mandatory rookie session with Felipe Drugovich taking the wheel at Aston Martin in FP1, Lance Stroll was back in his usual cockpit for FP2 as Italian Grand Prix practice continued on a sunny Friday afternoon at Monza.

But that did not last long for the Canadian, however, bringing out the red flag after he came to a halt on the exit of the Ascari Chicane, reporting that he “completely lost power” on the run to the corner.

His AMR23 came to a stop while stuck in eighth gear, but Aston Martin opted to keep him in the car for several minutes trying to restart the car remotely, asking him to keep the marshals away from his car before eventually having to give up and getting rolled him away to safety.

Hardly ideal preparation for his Saturday, with no representative running at all as the team diagnosed a fuel system issue for his stoppage.

But still with 50 minutes on the clock, the remaining drivers were out again in quick succession with plenty to be done to prepare their car setup for the weekend.

And after the first round of flying laps, it was the Williams of Alex Albon who was closest to Verstappen, just 0.005s behind the Red Bull – albeit on softer tyres – but with the team traditionally having performed well on high-speed circuits this season, they will look to the Italian Grand Prix as a potential points-scoring opportunity.

But in quick succession, the two home heroes went quickest of all, Sainz clocking a 1:21.565 on medium tyres and Leclerc going 0.273s behind his Ferrari team-mate, though qualifying simulations were still yet to come during FP2.

Lewis Hamilton was taking issue with how a change in rear wing angle was negatively affecting his performance in a straight line, losing out in top speed to team-mate George Russell and asking to come into the pits as a result to get his car tweaked.

Elsewhere, attention began to turn to soft tyre running as the teams trialled qualifying setups, with Pirelli also bringing their softest tyre compounds to Monza this weekend in a change to previous years.

Perez was the driver to pip Sainz on his soft tyre run, but while the Spaniard had gone faster, he cut the Della Roggia Chicane after locking up his rear tyres into the braking zone.

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Verstappen suffered with traffic on his qualifying simulation, with a middle sector packed full of cars on the exit of the second Lesmo corner, and he requested a second tilt at a flying lap, asking: “We’re not going to try again? Because I had a s*** read.”

And when race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase replied: “It’s not qualifying, Max”, the reigning World Champion responded: “Yeah I know, but I want to have a proper read.”

But regardless of the time he lost in traffic, Verstappen was brought back into the pits and focus turned, as is traditional in FP2, to a long run simulation for the final third of the session.

Perez came a cropper on the exit of Curva Michele Alboreto [formerly known as Parabolica] late in the session, running wide and into the gravel after suffering understeer.

This saw him dip a wheel onto the gravel and subsequently sent him into a slide towards the wall – though he was able to manage to stay clear of a hefty impact, but the floor of his Red Bull is likely to tell a different story.

This brought out the red flag once again with eight minutes to go, curbing the practice running for the rest of the field as the drivers were forced back into the pits.

But with a quick turnaround and clearout from the marshals, the drivers had four more minutes to get a couple more laps under their belts at Monza to round off FP2 on Friday.

FP2 classification: 2023 Italian Grand Prix

1 Carlos SAINZ Ferrari 1:21.355
2 Lando NORRIS McLaren +0.019
3 Sergio PEREZ Red Bull +0.185
4 Oscar PIASTRI McLaren +0.190
5 Max VERSTAPPEN Red Bull +0.276
6 Charles LECLERC Ferrari +0.361
7 Alexander ALBON Williams +0.624
8 Fernando ALONSO Aston Martin +0.716
9 George RUSSELL Mercedes +0.821
10 Nico HULKENBERG Haas +0.936
11 Kevin MAGNUSSEN Haas +1.219
12 Valtteri BOTTAS Alfa Romeo +1.240
13 Pierre GASLY Alpine +1.296
14 Yuki TSUNODA AlphaTauri +1.341
15 Esteban OCON Alpine +1.361
16 Logan SARGEANT Williams +1.400
17 Lewis HAMILTON Mercedes +1.428
18 Liam LAWSON AlphaTauri +1.812
19 ZHOU Guanyu Alfa Romeo +1.991
20 Lance STROLL Aston Martin NO TIME

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