The seven-time world champion was the fastest in FP2
There Mercedes The Monza weekend began with Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s accident in FP1, a KO that put an end to the Italian driver’s debut after 10 minutes, also partially compromising George Russell’s FP2, who was able to take to the track a few minutes late for repair work. Lewis Hamilton was the fastest, preceding Lando Norris by three thousandths and unlike the other drivers, he had a long run that was the opposite, starting slowly and then dropping his times while his rivals were rising due to graining. Below are the words of the seven-time world champion and Russell, who followed a particular program, running the Qualifying simulation after the long run with medium tires.
Lewis Hamilton: “I’m happy that Antonelli was OK because it was a big crash. In terms of the performance of our car, it was a good day. The new asphalt and the smoother kerbs were an interesting challenge, but the car performed well from the start. The graining was evident already in FP1 on pretty much all the cars. We made some big changes before FP2 and the car made a step forward. There is still some work to do overnight both here and at the factory, especially on the long run, so that we can be as competitive as possible for the rest of the weekend.”
George Russell: “It’s never nice to see an accident like Antonelli’s and what matters is that he didn’t get hurt. The mechanics did a great job to prepare the car for FP2. I had 30 minutes to work around the red flag and I really thank them. The car seems to be behaving well. Lewis did a great job to be ahead of everyone on the timesheets, I was more focused on the long run. The track will evolve significantly, we will have to be good at interpreting the data available”.
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