Report: A Friday full of “experimenting” at Monza

The yearly return to Formula One’s lowest downforce circuit often sees plenty of different setups being trialled on the first day of running, and this was once again the case at Monza this afternoon.

As a venue we’ve enjoyed a positive record at during the turbo-hybrid era, Head of Vehicle Performance Dave Robson guided us through what was an important pair of Free Practice sessions at the aptly named Temple of Speed.

“It has been a fairly typical Monza Friday with the drivers getting themselves accustomed to low downforce and the new areas of tarmac,” Dave shared after FP2, adding: “At the same time, we have been experimenting with rear wing options and tyre management.

“On the whole, we have been making reasonable progress throughout the day and whilst there is a lot to go through tonight, both drivers have a good baseline on which to build their performance tomorrow.

“We know that there are several grid penalties to be applied after qualifying and we need to understand the implications of this to the rest of our weekend.

“Fortunately, the weather looks set fair for the next two days and so we can concentrate our efforts elsewhere and build on what we learnt today.”

Alex Albon was our leading driver across both sessions, finishing P11 and P10 across FP1 and FP2 respectively, improving by seventh-tenths between the two to end the day with a personal best time of 1:22.835.

“It wasn’t a bad today and I feel like we’re in the mix,” the Thai driver shared, continuing: “It’s definitely close out there, so we need to make sure we maximise everything for tomorrow.

“Ultimately, we know what direction we need to go in and with the long run pace, we need to make sure we get on top of the tyres, but I’m happy with how today went.”

Nicholas Latifi finished both sessions P20 and P19 respectively, improving by just under a second to set a personal best of 1:23.982.

“A tricky start to the weekend so far. It does feel quite different when compared to Zandvoort with everyone bringing their lowest downforce configurations.

“There’s still some time to find from my side. We made a good step in FP2 but there’s still more to come tomorrow, so we’ll do our homework tonight.”

In Formula 2, Logan Sargeant was forced to back off on his final run owing to a crash at Parabolica, ultimately qualifying P9 whilst fellow Academy driver Zak O’Sullivan will line up P17 in Formula 3.