Lewis Hamilton made it a clean sweep of fastest practice times for the Italian Grand Prix by topping the final session at a damp but drying Monza circuit.
Overnight and early morning rain left the Monza track drying throughout the course of the session as most drivers ventured out just for a single installation lap in the first 25 minutes. Only the two Toro Rosso’s of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz set a timed lap on intermediate tyres but were almost 10 seconds slower than Hamilton’s fastest time on Friday. Sainz was the first man to go out on the medium white-marked tyres with just half an hour remaining and took over at the top of the timesheets from his teammate but still six seconds slower than Friday.
The rest of the field soon followed and as the track continued to dry with more cars lapping the circuit, the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg set the fastest time with a 1:25.480 on the medium tyre ahead of Sebastian Vettel by three tenths of a second. Meanwhile, Daniel Ricciardo came to a halt at the second chicane with just over 15 minutes left of the session with a hydraulics problem and was warned by his team to stop the car without changing gear to prevent damaging his new gearbox.
Lewis Hamilton was on an even quicker lap time than his teammate on the medium tyres but aborted the lap to prepare for a soft tyre qualifying simulation run at the end of the session. A lot of the drivers continued to struggling with braking into the first and second chicanes with the damp patches of track affecting their low fuel laps. Nico Rosberg was the first man into the 1m24’s in final practice but was soon beaten by Sebastian Vettel and then Lewis Hamilton with a 1m24.544s lap which was still a few tenths slower than the Friday times.
The session wasn’t representative of the pace expected in qualifying with the Ferrari of Vettel splitting the two Mercedes drivers and just 0.264seconds slower than Hamilton. The Williams duo of Bottas and Massa ended final practice fourth and fifth less than a second behind the championship leader with Maldonado a tenth further adrift. The Force India’s were also lower down the order than on Friday finishing the session in eighth and twelfth for Perez and Hulkenberg respectively.
Marcus Ericsson managed to break into the top ten in final practice just ahead of the second Lotus of Romain Grosjean. The Red Bull and Toro Rosso drivers didn’t complete a qualifying simulation as their power unit penalties render their qualifying pointless as they will start the race from the back of the grid along with the McLaren pair of Alonso and Button.
