Hamilton top of the pile in Italian GP second practice

AFP | Monza

The Daily Tribune - www.newsofbahrain.com

Email: editor@newsofbahrain.com

Lewis Hamilton topped the times for Mercedes in yesterday’s second practice session for the Formula One Italian Grand Prix by the finest of margins in front of Lando Norris.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton clocked a fastest lap of one minute, 20.738 seconds at Monza, just 0.003sec ahead of McLaren’s Norris who is the closest challenger to Max Verstappen’s current F1 supremacy.

Norris trails Red Bull’s championship leader by 70 points in the drivers’ championship after a stunning win at last weekend’s Dutch GP. That was the fifth straight race not to be won by Verstappen, who was fastest in yesterday’s first practice session but was 0.872sec behind Hamilton in the second back in 14th place.

Hamilton’s display in a session disrupted for over 10 minutes by Kevin Magnussen crashing his Haas at the Lesmo corners is a good sign for the rest of the weekend, as he has won two of the last four GPs and is racing at the home track of his future team Ferrari.

The 39-year-old will join the Scuderia next season, replacing Carlos Sainz who was third in the second session, 0.103 off the pace. Hamilton’s current teammate at Mercedes George Russell finished the session 0.348sec back in sixth, a decent result after his car was badly damaged by rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli earlier in the day.