Mercedes make very fast start at F1's quickest circuit; Norris and Gasly ahead of Verstappen; Battle for the tow again set to be a big feature in Saturday's qualifying hour from 2pm
Friday 4 September 2020 19:21, UK
Lewis Hamilton moved ahead of Valtteri Bottas in Practice Two for the Italian GP, but perennial Mercedes challenger Max Verstappen was only fifth behind McLaren's Lando Norris and AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly.
Hamilton opened an afternoon advantage of almost three tenths of a second over Bottas, his Mercedes team-mate, on the qualifying simulations with a session-topping lap of 1:20.192.
Mercedes were nearly a second clear of the field around F1's fastest circuit - but behind them was a more competitive picture emerging from the opening day.
Norris had spent much of the session at the foot of the order due to an energy-deployment issue on his Renault-engined MCL35, but a late flying run took him up to the third-fastest time, 0.8s adrift of Hamilton.
Gasly slipped to fourth, but the in-form Frenchman ran strongly all day and his performance meant that, unusually, Red Bull's junior team outpaced the senior one.
Verstappen had spun and crashed in the morning exiting the final chicane and, although there were no more setbacks in the afternoon, he labelled the day as having been "not good".
"Struggled with grip and balance, so yeah quite a bit of work to do," admitted the Dutchman, who was the only Red Bull in the top 10 after Alex Albon had his quickest lap time deleted for exceeding track limits at the Parabolica.
But McLaren and AlphaTauri did end up with both their cars in the top seven, although Renault would have finished with Daniel Ricciardo in the top three had the Australian not had his quickest effort deleted for running fractionally wide at Monza's fast final turn.
Without a qualifying simulation that counted, Ricciardo finished down in an unrepresentative 15th, with team-mate Esteban Ocon a similarly-misleading 11th, on a track where the RS20 is expected to go well on after a starring role in similar low-downforce conditions at Spa last week.
Struggling Ferrari, meanwhile, moved up the afternoon timesheet to ninth and 12th positions, but both their drivers still had off-course moments with a misbehaving SF1000.
Sebastian Vettel spun at the first Lesmo, with Charles Leclerc then running across the grass on the outside of the same corner a short while later.
Racing Point, surprisingly low-key runners at Spa, were again towards the foot of the top 10.
