When the 2021 Formula E champion pitted before setting a timed lap – which he wouldn’t do until halfway as Aston focused on gathering aero data early on – Haas’ Kevin Magnussen set the benchmark for first place at 1m27.185s. This was quickly beaten by a series of faster times, with Sainz, Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez all enjoying brief stops at the top as the pack ran a series of tire compounds during the opening run. At the end of the opening laps, Verstappen took first place for the first time with a set of 1m25.830s on the hard tyres. Perez then took the lead with a 1m25.026s, also on the whitewall tyre, before Fernando Alonso took the lead next time out thanks to his 1m24.935s on the hards. Verstappen’s opening set in his first hard set continued and he finished the first 10 minutes in first place thanks to his 1m23.449s, which he beat twice more before there was a lull before the opening qualifying simulations – the benchmark in a 1m22 .853s. Yuki Tsunoda was the first driver to complete a flyer on the softs before the lull around 20 minutes, but finished a second off Verstappen’s best time on the hards. When the action picked up again just before the halfway point, Leclerc led the leaders on the exit on the softs and immediately took the lead from Verstappen with a 1m22.410s. The Red Bull drivers went soft minutes later, with Perez’s opening effort coming well over a second clear of Leclerc’s best. Verstappen, who had a small lock-up on his outside lap on his new softs at the circuit’s first chicane, looked poised to beat Leclerc’s time before encountering traffic in the final sector. Lando Norris was running over four seconds off the pace still on the hard tires when Verstappen caught him just before the Ascari chicane and the Briton didn’t get out of the Red Bull’s way and led him to the finish. There, Verstappen improved his personal best to finish second, but lost 0.7s to the McLaren to go from 0.3s clear of Leclerc before catching Norris 0.4s back. with Russell ending up 0.5s behind Leclerc in third after having to pass several slow cars on the back straight at the end of his lap. Hamilton’s first run on the softs initially left him only seventh and just over a second slower than Leclerc as he had to catch big slides coming out of the second chicane and into the middle of the Ascari group. Russell then completed a second run on the softs to move ahead of Verstappen and close to 0.279s slower than Leclerc. Hamilton then also undercut Verstappen with a 1m22.831s, after Sainz had set a time just 0.077s slower than his team-mate. Sainz had an off-set plan compared to Leclerc, after the Ferrari had to work on his F1-75 in the pits after the opening laps, with the Spaniard again sent off for a high-fuel stint in the hard as Leclerc put his of. flying round in soft. But Sainz’s 1m22.487 almost matched Leclerc’s time when he was finally able to complete an initial test simulation just before the final quarter of the session began. Verstappen went out on the soft again during the closing stages but only finished the higher fuel off the pace and his fifth place result was cemented. Ocon finished sixth ahead of Tsunoda, whose subsequent run on the softs meant he closed to within 0.850s of Leclerc. Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo rounded out the top 10, with Norris in 16th in the other McLaren. De Vries finished 19th fastest ahead of Williams driver Nicholas Latifi, with the Aston rookie having a short run through the Ascari gravel during a late trip. Several teams, including Red Bull, ran different rear wing specifications as they began to work out the best set-up for Monza’s long straights. Perez’s rear wing was also seen swinging wildly as he raced down the main straight during the opening laps, with Red Bull working on the issue, which also appeared in the early rounds of the season, throughout the rest of the season.
