The first session of the race weekend in Monza, Italy took place under a sunny sky. Championship leader Stoffel Vandoorne remained anonymous in the first half of the session, struggling and running wide twice through the challenging Variante di Rettifilo. Instead, it was showtime for Vandoorne’s rival, Visoiu’s team mate Sergey Sirotkin: As the laptimes tumbled down, the Russian was constantly among the top drivers and eventually claimed the top spot for himself with a lap of 1:32.500 when the times started to settle down.
10 minutes into the session, an unexpected name appeared next to the number one. Rene Binder had struggled to find his feet all season long with Trident Racing, but now the young Austrian showed outstanding speed when he took his new MP Motorsport car on the first flying laps. His effort of 1:32.093 was good enough to net him the provisional lead, and he would eventually finish the session in fifth place.
Afterwards, it was Pierre Gasly’s time to shine. The DAMS rookie was the first man to break the 1:32 minute barrier, beating Binder by four hundredths of a second. The Frenchman would go on to improve his own time even further to 1:31.669 after the mid-session pit stop break, and would remain unbeaten until the end of the free practice session.
Before the usual pit stop breaks, it was Vandoorne’s time to attack: The Belgian catapulted himself up to sixth place before improving even further to provisional second place.
The second half of the session saw little improvements. Two yellow flags interrupted the session as both Swiss drivers, Patric Niederhauser and Simon Trummer, stopped on track.
Pierre Gasly remained fastest of the session until the checkered flag. However, both Alexander Rossi and Rio Haryanto made last minute efforts that, while not quite good enough to sneak the top spot off the French rookie, were still fast enough to demote Vandoorne to fourth place. Rene Binder finished the sesion in fifth place, separating Vandoorne from Sergey Sirotkin, who had improved his earlier time to finish in sixth place ahead of Richie Stanaway, Alex Lynn, Arthur Pic, and Mitch Evans.
