Report: A productive first day in Monza

The hard work has begun following two productive practice sessions ahead of the Italian Grand Prix.

Both Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant clocked up some solid mileage as they looked to fine-tune their machines and this low downforce circuit.

Our No23 recorded 37 laps across both hour-long sessions, recording a best lap time of 1:21.979 in FP2 on the medium compound.

“The low downforce set up is difficult and I don’t think it feels particularly good for anyone, but despite this, the car feels okay,” Alex shared after finishing P7 in FP2.

“We’re doing an alternate programme to most people, just trying to make sure we understand the Medium tyre going into Q2 tomorrow, as this is going to be important in trying to set ourselves up properly to make it into Q3.

“There are slightly different issues I’m feeling with the car but nothing I can’t deal with, so we’ll look at these ahead of tomorrow.

“What’s important is that we’re in the mix but I don’t want to speak too soon. For FP3 tomorrow, we need to weigh up and see what everyone else is doing, helping us to understand where we want to focus on.

Across the other side of our garage, Logan racked up 45 tours of the Autodromo Nazionale Monza and is looking to get more out of his FW45 as he heads deeper into the weekend.

“It has been pretty tricky today, I’m sure everyone is finding it tricky with the low downforce that we run here, but there’s definitely some time to find for tomorrow,” Sarge said after setting a 1:22.755 to place him P16 in FP2.

“I don’t think we’re too far away, but we want to make a few steps forward.

“I’m sure tomorrow is going to be a case of avoiding the chaos that Monza usually brings, getting the tyres in the right window and putting in good laps and hopefully that will leave us in a good spot.

“The goal tomorrow for me is to take it step by step. The first goal is to get to Q2 and then think about the rest after that.”

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance, is keen to get everything prepared for the second Alternative Tyre Allocation test programme in qualifying tomorrow, commenting: “It has been a very interesting day with a full day of dry running to see how the ATA regulations would play out.

“There was more variation in the run plan and tyre usage than is normal on a Friday; we are happy with what we did, and we think we got a good sight of the Soft and Medium compounds in relevant track conditions.

“The car wasn’t quite balanced correctly in FP1 but by FP2 both drivers were a lot happier and we now have a car that we can work on overnight.

“There are some improvements that we can make but no major issues to fix.

“It is always very difficult to understand pace differences in Monza as drivers will have done different run programmes, with different PU modes and varying tows.

“Nonetheless, we are satisfied that we have made a solid start and we can look to build on this over the next two days.”