Pacesetter Lewis Hamilton leads another Mercedes one-two and ends up 1.6s clear of third-placed Vettel; Mercedes introduce new engine; Sainz spins out while McLaren's struggle continues
Wednesday 9 September 2015 13:14, UK
The newly-blond Lewis Hamilton led the way in Practice One at Monza as Mercedes made a storming start to the Italian GP weekend armed with their new engine.
Hamilton's bleached hairdo aside, the headline-grabbing addition to the dominant Mercedes W06 on Friday was an upgraded engine after the world champions spent all of their remaining seven development tokens ahead of the final European round of 2015.
Although Mercedes described the changes as "tactical" so they could work on longer-term developments for next season, their massive early lead on the Monza timesheet – 1.6 seconds ahead of Ferrari alone – suggests the unit has also brought more immediate performance gains on a circuit the W06 was expected to suit anyway.
Hamilton, race winner in Italy last year, found his groove around the high-speed track particularly early and outpaced Nico Rosberg by 0.463s in a best time of 1:24.670. It was the 44th time out of 76 sessions in 2015 that the world champion has topped the charts.
As has been the case so often this season, Vettel was Mercedes' nearest challenger, but the German could only manage a 1:26.258 and even had a spin at the first chicane late-on as he pushed to improve his lap time.
"If there's one thing we've learnt it's that the rest aren't in the same ballpark as Mercedes at the moment," declared Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft as the W06 also led the way by nearly 10kph through the speed trap.
Force India, fresh from their best result in over a year at Spa, made a strong start here too with Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez fourth and fifth respectively ahead of the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen. The only apparent concern for Force India was a fuel leak on Hulkenberg's VJM08.
With Vettel and Hulkenberg the only drivers to lap within two seconds of Mercedes, Daniel Ricciardo was 2.3s back in the top Red Bull in seventh, ahead of the newly-resigned Williams pair of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas.
Like Red Bull's two drivers, McLaren face further engine penalties this weekend and the Woking team limited their mileage with the new units in P1 before calling an early halt to their session so they could work on fitting older engines for P2's running.
When they were on track the stopwatch again made grim reading for the team's all-world champion driver pairing as Fernando Alonso (17th) and Jenson Button (18th) lapped quicker than only the Manor cars.
Meanwhile, in a session of reasonably little incident, Carlos Sainz had a P1 to forget as he spun out at the Parabolica after just eight laps. The Spaniard had already twice aborted runs with a gearbox problem on his Toro Rosso.
Practice One timesheet
1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1:24.670
2. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:25.133
3. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 1:26.258
4. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, 1:26.612
5. Sergio Perez, Force India, 1:26.730
6. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:26.783
7. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1:26.922
8. Felipe Massa, Williams, 1:26.936
9. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, 1:27.075
10. Pastor Maldonado, Lotus, 1:27.118
11. Felipe Nasr, Sauber, 1:27.232
12. Daniil Kvyat, Red Bull, 1:27.275
13. Marcus Ericsson, Sauber, 1:27.454
14. Max Verstappen, Toro Rosso, 1:27.591
15. Jolyon Palmer, Lotus, 1:27.669
16. Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso, 1:27.907
17. Fernando Alonso, McLaren, 1:28.023
18. Jenson Button, McLaren, 1:28.423
19. Will Stevens, Manor, 1:29.853
20. Roberto Merhi, Manor, 1:29.911
