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The long straights and short corners of Monza look like they have equalised the cars of the top four Formula 1 teams to an unprecedented degree going into this year's Italian Grand Prix.
Their long run times in particular are remarkably close: only 0.1 seconds between the six cars from four teams which did 10 laps or more, all on the medium tyre, in what is expected to be a one-stop race (but with the caveat that the new surface could impose enough degradation that a two-stop is not out of the question).
That concern about degradation probably also plays its part in applying an equalising blanket to the top cars in the practice long runs. The true picture probably won’t be revealed until they’ve done more than the 10-11 laps that were possible today.
LONG RUN AVERAGES (ALL MEDIUM TYRE)
Russell 1m24.95s (7 laps)
Perez 1m25.22s (5 laps)
Piastri 1m25.51s (10 laps)
Norris 1m25.52s (10 laps)
Hamilton 1m25.53s (10 laps)
Sainz 1m25.56s (7 laps)
Verstappen 1m25.57s (11 laps)
Leclerc 1m25.61s (11 laps)
Ignore Max Verstappen’s unrepresentative position in the headline times; he was late taking to the track on his new softs, encountered a bit of traffic and then caught the Kevin Magnussen-induced red flag.
By the time the session restarted it was time to get on with the long runs. But Verstappen had headed the FP1 times by quite a chunk, albeit at a more advantageous track time than his rivals.
He was still complaining of an imbalance through the high-speed corners and was insisting his medium tyres were ‘finished’ by the end of his 11-lap race stint sim. But his average lap times over those laps were very much on par with McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari.
He hit the initial laps slightly harder than they did and consequently he was slower by the end than the others.
But that could just as easily have been the result of the chosen pace at the beginning rather than inherently worse degradation.
Naturally though, Verstappen is a little concerned as he and Red Bull are still struggling to rediscover the car’s form.
Although it was only two races ago at Spa that it was comfortably the quickest in qualifying, it’s still not as fluid as he’d like.
“It seems quite aggressive on tyres at the moment,” he said. “They’re opening up, so it will be quite interesting to see how that evolves for the race.
"I think we have quite a few good directions to take with the car, but we need to tidy it up a bit and I think it’s going to be quite close between a lot of cars.
"Hopefully we can be in that mix. We’re just trying different set-up directions.”
Probably the most convincing of the long runs for its consistency was that of Lando Norris, but his overall average was almost identical to that of McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri and the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton.
Both George Russell and Sergio Perez set better averages but their runs were flattered by being shorter.
The averages of Piastri, Norris, Hamilton, Verstappen and Leclerc were all on the same tyre and all conducted over either 10 or 11 laps and so are therefore directly comparable. Their pace is incredibly closely-matched.
Norris is yet to be convinced the McLaren is the fastest car around Monza.
“I wasn’t very comfortable with it in FP1," he reported. “FP2 was better but we’ve got to make some progress overnight ahead of quali tomorrow.
"I’ve got some areas to focus on with my driving in FP3, but we’ve got a good starting point to work from as a team."
On the single lap runs Hamilton was fastest by three hundredths of a second from Norris, their times set on used tyres, with the Ferrari of third-fastest Carlos Sainz doing its time on a brand new set, so perhaps being artificially flattered.
Potentially fastest was Piastri who was almost 0.3s ahead until a snap of oversteer through Ascari overheated his rear tyres and bled lap time away in the last couple of corners.
From what we’ve seen, the McLaren looks potentially the fastest over a lap.
That said, Verstappen’s Red Bull appeared from the GPS traces to be running with a lower power unit mode than the others, so further muddying the waters.
Russell was disadvantaged in getting out late as repairs were made to his car which had been crashed heavily by the debuting Kimi Antonelli in FP1 on just his second attack lap.
The rookie lacked nothing in commitment, the accident coming after he took too much speed into Parabolica, having just set the fastest middle sector time. Mercedes was running its two floors back-to-back, with Hamilton on the newer one for FP2, Russell the previous spec.
Red Bull’s low downforce rear wing was bigger than those of McLaren, Mercedes and, especially, Ferrari and the team was still experimenting between the early-season floor (run throughout by Verstappen, just as at Zandvoort) and the more developed one run by Perez.
There is not one ‘correct’ wing level for Monza as the end-of-straight speed is only part of the story. Entry speeds onto the straights, especially out of Lesmo 2 and Parabolica, will see you faster quite a long way down the straight.
But the general pattern of the wing levels chosen on Friday was that of the top teams Ferrari was quickest at the end of the straights, Red Bull the slowest (but with that PU mode proviso).
The Mercedes generally had a higher end-of-straight speed than the McLaren which had the most consistent spread of performance through the various speed ranges.
It would be no surprise to see some of Friday’s choices on downforce level tweaked for Saturday as the changes to the track’s surface and kerbs have had a profound impact.
“It has changed quite a lot,” insisted Sainz.
“The challenges and limitations are quite different from previous years and we had to adapt to a new scenario in terms of car set-up and understanding tyre degradation.
"There is quite a lot of work to do tonight.”
So, a very tentative suggested advantage for McLaren on the first day. But the others are breathing heavily down its neck.
A lot is going to hang on the directions taken by those four teams tonight. There is probably a lot of potential for improvement, for reasons McLaren’s Andrea Stella explained.
“We have to understand the tyres on this new tarmac, which seemed to show that they behave differently when compared to the past," he said.
"As usual in Monza, we were also trying to nail the set-up for the long straights while also saving some grip in the corners.
"This year it looks like the tarmac is a lot smoother, which offers some opportunities from a set-up point of view.”
