Monza, FP3: Hamilton continues to dominate with fastest time in final practice

Lewis Hamilton’s domination of the Monza timesheets continued this morning as the Mercedes driver went fastest in final practice ahead of qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix.

The Briton logged a fastest lap of 1:24.544 to edge Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, with the German finishing 0.264 adrift of the championship leader. Nico Rosberg was third in the second Mercedes with a time of 1:24.843 that left him three tenths down on his team-mate.

After heavy early morning rain the session began in wet/drying conditions and most of the early laps were conducted on wet and intermediate tyres, though these were largely exploratory, untimed laps to test the conditions.

It wasn’t until the session approached the halfway point that the Toro Rossos emerged from the pit lane on medium slick tyres. Carlos Sainz set a lap of 1:32.814 and then improved by a second as team-mate Max Verstappen struggled for grip in the evolving conditions and slid wide at Ascari.

As both drivers’ times rapidly began to improve the rest of the field began to emerge on slicks and with 23 minutes left in the session Vettel took over at the top of the times with a lap of 1m28.673s on medium tyres, while Verstappen, now on the option soft tyre, and Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson slotted into second and third places.

As more drivers took to the track for their first runs, Vettel’s Ferrari team-mate Kimi Räikkönen then moved to the top order ahead of Ericsson, who had found enough pace to split the Ferraris.

Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo emerged for his first run, on the soft tyres but his track time was shortlived as, with 15 minutes to go, the Australian’s RB11 stopped at the second chicane and he took no further part in the session.

A minute later Mercedes’ drivers finally began to show their hand with Rosberg, on medium tyres, setting a lap of 1:25.480 that dislodged Vettel from top spot. Hamilton was more cautious and moved to fifth place behind the Williams cars of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa with his first efforts on the medium tyre.

Bottas was the first to make a big move on the soft tyre with the Finn taking P1 with a lap of 1:25.366 with less than five minutes remaining.

Rosberg responded, however, and moved back to the top with a lap of 1:24.908 that was four tenths better than that of the Williams man. Vettel then pushed his way past Rosberg by a tenth.

Any joy among the Ferrari fans was soon dispelled as Hamilton came through to Hamilton comes through with a best time of 1:24.544 to go fastest.

With Vettel and Rosberg in second and third respectively and with the Williams cars of Bottas and Massa fourth and fifth, sixth place went to Lotus’ Pastor Maldonado. Räikkönen ended the session in seventh place, ahead of Force India’s Sergio Perez, Ericsson and the second Lotus of Romain Grosjean.