Sebastian Vettel sets the pace in practice at Monza
Sebastian Vettel from Red Bull set the pace at Monza circuit in Italy in Practice, ahead of the Ferrari duo of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa.
Vettel was 0.076 seconds quicker than Alonso, and Felipe Massa finished 3rd just fractions behind.
The British duo of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton were 5th and 4th respectively ahead of the 2nd Red Bull driver Mark Webber.
Currently McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton leads the driver standings ahead of Mark Webber by 3 points with 6 races to go in the season.
The practice session in Italy was very intensely contested with just 0.371 seconds setting the top 5 drivers apart. Mark Webber could not finish his practice and was forced to withdraw with 15 minutes on the clock still remaining. The Australian’s car had a water leak when he was just 0.576 seconds behind his team mate Sebastian Vettel.
After the practice sessions, Vettel said that the qualifying and the race would be a very tight affair, he said that there is hardly anything to choose from between the top 5 drivers and it would be anybody’s game this weekend.
The German said that his car was working well on the tracks, and so was his team mate Mark Webber’s. He said that Ferrari though was probably the quickest of all and it was a tough task getting ahead of them in practice. Vettel added that McLarens were also not far behind and were right up there for most of the day. He went on to say that overall things look good for him and he is happy with his far.
Mark Webber admitted that he was not able to match the pace of his team mate, and did lag behind even though both had the same cars. He said that he needs to work on some aspects of his driving, but still he was happy with the day out and said that qualifying would go much better for him.
Red Bull had been expecting it to be difficult weekend, as it was believed that the Italian track would suit the McLaren and Ferrari team more.
However after the results of practice the team said that they were pleasantly surprised.
Coming into the all important Italian Grand Prix, McLaren were touted as the team to beat. But the 2 British drivers did not look their best in the 2nd practice session. The first 90 minutes however did look promising for them.
Fernando Alonso after practice said that one should not judge McLaren from the practice sessions, as normally they assess the track on Friday and come out with their tactics on qualifying.
The double world champion said that the team is happy with the progress made on the tacks in practice, and expect a good qualifying on Saturday.
Ferrari team boss Stefano Dominical said that practice sessions had gone well, but he expected something more from his team and hopefully qualifying would go much better. He added that the team engineers were able to pick out some interesting points in practice and would rectify them for qualifying.
Stefano said that it’s no secret that McLaren would be the favourites considering the long straights on the Monza circuit, but Ferrari may have a surprise or two on Saturday and on race day.
There are six races left in the season, and Hamilton is leading the standings. If McLaren do manage to get a good result this Sunday, and it is Hamilton on pole. It would be a tough ask for the rest to catch up to the Brit. Especially considering that Ferrari have been off the pace in recent races.
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