Check out how FP2 went:

A few hours passed, but the weather situation in Monza, in the Italian region of Lombardy, remained the same. Ambient temperature at 27°C, 37°C on asphalt and no risk of rain. All this, with the sun showing its faces. Nothing fragile for the second training of the day.

As in the previous session, as soon as the green light appeared, the track was full. It was almost immediate, but this time without the soft tires appearing. Domain of hard and medium. Pirelli has selected the softest range of tires possible for the weekend, this is always important to remember.

Still less than five minutes from Friday’s first red flag. Lance Stroll, who was on the track for the first time – he had entrusted the car to Felipe Drugovich during FP1 – had problems and could not change gear properly. He came out at the Ascari bend and braked at the edge of the track.

The situation escalated a bit as, in an apparent case of a hydraulic problem, the car was stopped with the engine running and unable to shift gears, preventing inspectors from pushing the car. Aston Martin radio asked Stroll to tell the stewards to stand down, but the stewards asked him to leave the cockpit. Eventually the team quit and ordered everything to be shut down. Aston Martin then justified the stop by a problem with the fuel system.

After a few minutes, training resumed. In the first fast laps, Max Verstappen had already set a time of 1min22s244 and grabbed the reserved place. Alex Albon was in second place. Between McLaren and Mercedes, what stood out was the traffic and the fact that Oscar Piastri almost crashed into a Lewis Hamilton which entered the main track very slowly.

It is important to remember the different format of qualifying, which requires drivers to use soft tires in Q3 tomorrow – in addition to hard tires in Q1 and medium in Q2. The problem with the EL2s, however, was the drivers’ deliberate slowness on the track to seek out the void and avoid dropping out. The frequency with which this happened was staggering once the ranking simulations were launched.

Halfway through practice, the rush began for the laps on the soft tires. Before happy hour, however, there was annoyance with Hamilton, who wondered how he could be so much slower down the straight than teammate George Russell. The answer was in the configuration: Russell had less wing than Lewis, who asked to stop to change.

As soon as the softs appeared, Carlos Sainz took the lead, followed by Leclerc in second position. But that only lasted until Red Bull did the same. Pérez started in 1min21s540 and took the lead, while Verstappen initially spun for the third time. While everyone drove on soft tyres, Pérez, Sainz, Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Albon, Fernando AlonsoRussell, Kevin Magnussen, Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon formed the top 10.

Afterwards, Aston Martin reported that they had identified Stroll’s fuel problem and were already in repair, but would not have enough time to get it back on the track still in operation.

Pérez therefore took important outlines for training. At first we were irritated by the traffic in the lane. “What are they doing? We have to be better than that, guys,” he said on team radio, but referring to his fellow drivers. A few minutes later, he lost control of car n°11 at the Parabolica exit, spun and found himself with the rear against the wall. Bandred threshing floor with less than ten minutes remaining.

Training even resumed, with four minutes to go, but only for a short demonstration of a racing simulation, some of which practically match each other. Sainz really led after all.

F1 2023, Italian GP, ​​Monza, EL2: