Lewis Hamilton lost almost an hour of valuable track time in FP2 in Monza today, but still managed to run team mate Nico Rosberg close – and finish with the top time of the day.
Unusually the headline time in FP1 was faster than that set in the afternoon session. Hamilton was fastest on 1m26.187s in that first session, while Rosberg was top in FP2, but slightly slower overall on 1m26.225s.
In the afternoon session Hamilton hit electronic problems – with the engine that was involved in a fire in Hungarian GP qualifying. The car would not start, and he lost some 57 minutes. He eventually ran only 16 laps compared to the 41 of his team mate, although he was only 0.041s slower after traffic hampered what should have been a better lap. He will have a different engine for tomorrow.
“They couldn’t start the car,” said Hamilton. “But the guys did a great job to get me back out, so I got a few laps at least. They managed to recover the one that burned to pieces [in Hungary]. It’s driven really well today, apart from not starting.
“I felt very good after the first session. I made a small change just now. I went out, I didn’t have a lot of laps, but the car feels great. Obviously we’ve got a very competitive car this weekend, and we’ve got a good chance tomorrow. Tomorrow hopefully I’ll get the whole session, so hopefully I’ll get a bit more running.
“It’s quite an important circuit to put it up front, it’s very difficult to overtake here. I’ve not had a good qualifying for seven or eight races, whatever it is, so I really hope that this weekend I can rectify that.”
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