Hamilton remains the fastest man in FP2

Sep 4, 2015
2 min read

Lewis Hamilton continued his strong form this afternoon to top FP2, but was closely followed by team mate Nico Rosberg. The German was half a second down this morning, but was just two hundredths of a second behind the world champion in the afternoon.

Unusually, Mercedes changed the front brakes on Hamilton’s car during the session; a procedure that normally takes place between sessions. Monza is known to be tough on brakes, given the long and heavy braking zones following high speed stretches.

Ferrari were closer to Mercedes in this session, but there was still a clear gap between the two teams. Sebastian Vettel was three-quarters off the pace in 3rd, and Kimi Raikkonen 1.1 seconds off in 6th.

Force India continued to show strong form, with Sergio Perez 4th and Nico Hulkenberg 5th. The car was also the fastest in the speed trap; a trait we saw in Spa. However, their main rivals Lotus were much closer with Romain Grosjean 7th and Pastor Maldonado 8th, and only two tenths back.

Red Bull were heavily focused on their race runs, knowing that they will start towards the back of the grid because of their engine penalties, which is why Daniel Ricciardo was only 13th and Daniil Kvyat was at the bottom of the timesheets. Both cars were hindered during the session, however. Ricciardo suffered a hydraulic issue which kept him in the garage for half an hour, with Kvyat also running into reliability problems.

Max Verstappen had an eventful session. He went into the gravel backwards at the Ascari chicane, in a mistake almost identical to that of his team mate’s in FP1. Verstappen also complained of a loose seat towards the end of the session.

McLaren’s woes continued with Fernando Alonso 16th, and Jenson Button sitting out the majority of the session with what appeared to be an ERS issue.

Final classification