F1 Italian GP: Hamilton pips Norris by 0.003s in second practice

Lewis Hamilton led FP2 for the Italian GP, 0.003s ahead of Lando Norris, while a Max Verstappen Parabolica slip and then a mid-session stoppage kept Red Bull outside top 10.

FP2 was halted for over 10 minutes through the start of the second half of the one-hour session due to Kevin Magnussen crashing his Haas at the second Lesmo.

In the early stages on the medium tyres, the home crowd enjoyed Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz knocking Hamilton and Norris down from the benchmark time with his 1m21.264s, before Leclerc went even quicker with a 1m21.119s – getting away with turning in from slightly on the grass on approach to the Della Roggia chicane.

For the second weekend in a row in an FP2 session, there was an unusually early switch to the qualifying simulation runs – as the teams worked to see how the softs could cope with multiple runs on the new asphalt here.

The McLaren drivers led the switch and duly blitzed to the top times – with Oscar Piastri getting ahead on a 1m20.858s that featured the best times in the first and second sectors, but Norris was able to nip ahead by 0.007s with his 1m20.851s.

At this stage, Hamilton slotted in 0.317s slower and was not even able to head Leclerc’s earlier time on the mediums, but the drivers were about to show it is possible to get multiple push laps from the C5 rubber in 2024.

First Norris bettered the first place benchmark with a 1m20.791, then Hamilton forged ahead on a 1m20.738s – that gave him first place by 0.003s.

Just behind, Verstappen’s first softs effort had to be aborted as he had to catch an oversteer snap going through the Parabolica as he was close to completing the lap.

Having gone into the runoff on the outside, Verstappen backed off and started touring around to possibly start a second attempt after cooling his tyres, but the session was then interrupted by Magnussen’s crash.

The Dane lost the rear of his Haas traversing Lesmo two on a soft tyre flier and spun off backwards into the gravel trap – ending up buried in the barriers, nose-first.

After he had climbed from the wreckage, the red flags flew for 12 minutes, after which the pack headed back out to complete the session with the typical end-of-FP2 race simulations.

Red Bull appeared to give Sergio Perez another chance to try the softs after he had stayed down the order pre-red flag and while he completed a personal best he remained 14th and behind Verstappen’s best effort on the mediums from the early stages.

Perez had also missed much of the first half of the session as Red Bull worked on his RB20 in its garage.

The stoppage initially preserved the top 10 behind Hamilton and Norris as Sainz, Piastri, Leclerc, Nico Hulkenberg, Daniel Ricciardo, Aston Martin pair Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, and Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas.

Sainz and Leclerc had set their best times either side of Norris and Hamilton putting in their second fliers on the softs.

George Russell’s session was completely different to the rest, as he only joined the fray 25 minutes in after Mercedes had to repair the car Andrea Kimi Antonelli had crashed in FP1.

Like like the rest did a race simulation stint after the red flag, but a few minutes before the end he switched to the softs and jumped from last to sixth, which shuffled Bottas down to 11th and left the two Red Bulls 14th and 15th.

Both Mercedes drivers complained of their seats getting hot throughout FP2.