Max Verstappen has topped the first practice session of the Italian Grand Prix as Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli heavily crashed his Russell-leased W15.
The session began with Mercedes academy driver Antonelli behind the wheel, setting the fastest lap time in the initial stages. However, the rookie and rumored soon-to-be driver for the Silver Arrows heavily crashed about 10 minutes into the session, bringing out the red flags.
The Italian driver oversteered beyond the apex on the final corner, losing the rear end of his car and heavily crashing with the barriers, damaging the W15. Antonelli was OK and walked out of the crash. He apologized to the team on the radio.
FP1 marks the first session for Franco Colapinto as a ‘full-time’ Formula 1 driver for Williams. The Argentine replaced Logan Sargeart after his heavy crash at Zandvoort last weekend, when team principal James Vowles decided he had enough of the American.
The top of today’s practice was nothing out of the usual but remember that FP1 and FP2 don’t mean much, and the real showings begin on Saturday.
Verstappen topped the timing charts to the surprise of no-one. The Red Bull driver set the fastest time of 1:21.676s ahead of second-placed Charles Leclerc, who was 0.228s behind. Lando Norris completed the top three by a gap of 0.241s to the leader.
Valtteri Bottas made an appearance in P5, 10 places ahead of teammate Guanyu Zhou who struggled to find the pace throughout practice. The Chinese driver, however, finished ahead of Lance Stroll, who had a very contrasting performance to that of teammate Fernando Alonso, who placed the 10th fastest time of the session with 0.639s to the leader.
Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg finished in P19 and only because he couldn’t have gone further back as P20 was taken by crashed-out Antonelli. He was 1.481s behind the leader, while his teammate Kevin Magnussen took P11 behind Alonso.
Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda took P12 and P13 respectively – nothing out of the usual for the RB F1 Team, although rumors say the Australian may be replaced by Red Bull soon.
The F1 action continues later with FP2. Do stay with ASN for further coverage.