What went on in first Italian GP F1 practice at Monza

Max Verstappen denied Carlos Sainz the top spot in the opening Formula 1 practice session at Ferrari’s home race, the Italian Grand Prix.

Key moments:

> Verstappen 0.046s faster than Sainz

> Perez and Leclerc third and fourth

> Both Alfas in strife

Monza is hosting the second weekend of F1’s ATA (alternative tyre allocation) experiment, meaning every team has two fewer sets of tyres this weekend.

Hard tyres were the tyre of choice for the frontrunners with 2023 dominator Verstappen, who is going in search of a record-breaking 10th consecutive grand prix victory this weekend, setting the pace on a 1m22.657s in his Red Bull RB19.

That was 0.046s quicker than Ferrari driver Sainz, who proved to be his closest competition. Perez was third-quickest in the second Red Bull, 0.177s adrift of Verstappen, with Leclerc just over three tenths off the pace in fourth place.

That touch of yellow 👌 🔥 #ItalianGP 🇮🇹 #F1 pic.twitter.com/cry389vN0t

— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) September 1, 2023

George Russell, fresh from being announced as staying at Mercedes until at least the end of 2025 along with team-mate Lewis Hamilton, was fifth quickest ahead of Fernando Alonso, who was the highest-placed driver to set his lap on the mediums.

Lando Norris used softs to put his McLaren seventh ahead of Hamilton (on mediums) and fellow soft-tyre runners Yuki Tsunoda and Alex Albon.

Oscar Piastri was 11th on softs ahead of the second Williams of Logan Sargeant and AlphaTauri’s Daniel Ricciardo stand-in Liam Lawson, who was 13th in the first session of his second weekend in F1.

Alfa Romeo suffered a tricky FP1 that started with both of its drivers stopping in the pitlane after both cars went into anti-stall.

Work to be done at Alfa Romeo 😫

Bottas and Zhou are still complaining about issues with the car's rear end #ItalianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/w2xR0rdzJo

— Formula 1 (@F1) September 1, 2023

They were wheeled back to the garage but the issues didn’t stop there as once the drivers went out, Zhou Guanyu reporting back to his team that he was “bottoming like crazy, guys, like crazy, it’s undrivable”, with Bottas making similar comments.

The team, which along with Ferrari is running a special livery this weekend, made further changes to the cars and both drivers reported that the car was “much better” in the last 10 minutes of the session.

Bottas ended the session 15th, with Zhou 20th and slowest of all.

Practice 1 Results