Friday, 5 September 2014

Hamilton fastest in FP1 as Button and McLaren show great initial pace in Monza

(Mercedes AMG F1 Team)

Mercedes AMG F1 Team's Lewis Hamilton set the benchmark time in the opening Free Practice session ahead of Sunday's Italian Grand Prix at the Monza circuit. The 2008 world champion set a time of 1m 26.187s to finish the session just 0.623s ahed of former McLaren team mate Jenson Button who showed great base for the Woking based outfit.

Championship leader Nico Rosberg finished the session third place just 0.808s behind Hamilton. Ferrari's Fernando Alonso did a great job in front of the tifosi to finish this morning's session in fourth place just ahead of Kevin Magnussen in the second McLaren. The Dane ended the session 1.041s behind Hamilton and just ahead of reigning world champion Infiniti Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel. 

Kimi Raikkonen ended the session in seventh place just ahead of Sahara Force India's Sergio Perez who sat out the first half an hour of this morning's session to allow the Silverstone based outfit to give their test and reserve driver Daniel Juncadella who ran with the extra set of Pirelli's hard tyre. The Spaniard  finished the session ahead of both Lotus drivers, Pastor Maldonado and Charles Pic who drove in place for regular race driver Romain Grosjean who will be back in the car for the second session.

Scuderia Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat finished the session in 9th place showing the the Italian team have great pace in the early stages of the Italian Grand Prix weekend. Sahara Force India's Nico Hulkenberg rounded out  the top ten 1.925s behind Hamilton.

Esteban Gutierrez did a great job for the Sauber F1 Team who are looking to score their first points of the season this weekend as the Mexican finished Free Practice One in eleventh place just ahead of the Williams Martini Racing Team duo of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa. While his team mate finished in 9th place Toro Rosso's Jean Eric Vergne finished the session in 14th place just ahead of the Sauber F1 Team's test and reserve driver Giedo Van Der Garde who was driving in place of  race driver Adrian Sutil.

Infiniti Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo had a difficult session and was down in 16th place. The Lotus F1 Team's Pastor Maldonado finished just behind Sahara Force India's Daniel Juncadella and just ahead of the Marussia F1 Team's Max Chilton. Jules Bianchi was 20th in the second Marussia just ahead of countryman Charles Pic who was driving place of Romain Grosjean. 

Caterham test and reserve driver Roberto Merhi finished the session just ahead of regular race driver Marcus Ericsson. After sitting out the last race at the Belgian Grand Prix two weeks ago Kamui Kobayashi will be back racing for the team this weekend and will drive in this afternoon's Free Practice 2 session.

© Ben Johnston 2014

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