Italian GP Saturday practice: All you need to know

Lewis Hamilton maintained Mercedes’ stranglehold on the Italian Grand Prix weekend by topping Saturday practice while Carlos Sainz suffered his third shunt in four race weekends.

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Key moments:

> Sainz crash causes red flag

> Hamilton leads Mercedes 1-2

> Verstappen and Perez 3-4 for Red Bull

> Kubica P6 for Alfa

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FP2 marked the final time the F1 teams are on track this weekend prior to the sprint race later on Saturday afternoon.

Following his crash in Hungarian GP qualifying and in FP3 at Zandvoort, Sainz suffered another incident in Saturday practice as he lost control of his car through the Ascari chicane.

Sainz smashed up the front end of his Ferrari and told his team “that hurt a bit but I’m OK” on the radio, as the red flag was swiftly deployed.

🚩 RED FLAG 🚩

Big crash for Carlos Sainz as he exits Ascari

Driver has safely exited and says he is OK #ItalianGP 🇮🇹 #F1 pic.twitter.com/cCs5EXUVEj

— Formula 1 (@F1) September 11, 2021

Ferrari has three hours to get Sainz’s car ready in time for the sprint race this afternoon, which he should start from seventh ahead of his team-mate Charles Leclerc.

When the session resumed, seven-time F1 champion Hamilton set the fastest time on a 1m23.246s on the soft tyres, 0.222s quicker than his Mercedes team-mate and sprint race pole-sitter Valtteri Bottas.

Championship leader Max Verstappen was third-quickest – the same position that he’ll start the sprint race from – but over half a second slower than his F1 title rival Hamilton albeit on the slower medium tyres, with Sergio Perez just under two tenths back from Verstappen on the softs.

Alpine’s Esteban Ocon was fifth fastest ahead of the Alfa Romeo duo, led by Robert Kubica in his second weekend standing in for Kimi Raikkonen following the 2007 world champion’s positive COVID test at Zandvoort.

Ocon’s team-mate Fernando Alonso was eighth ahead of 2020 Italian GP winner Pierre Gasly and McLaren’s Lando Norris, who will line up in fourth place for the sprint race.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc had to pit late on in the session for the team to fix an unspecified issue. He ended up 11th-fastest ahead of the second McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo.

Practice 2 Results