Hamilton tops final Monza practice

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F1 Grand Prix, GP Italy, Autodromo Nazionale di Monzait

Lewis Hamilton topped the times in the final practice session in preparation for the Italian GP. Ferrari drivers Alonso and Raikkonen put up the closest challenge while Nico Rosberg hit technical issues.

The final free practice session ahead of qualifying got underway with all drivers trying out the harder tyre. Lewis Hamilton notably got underway to do a race stint on this tyre, having missed a large part of FP2 due to a technical problem.

20 minutes from the end of the session, Fernando Alonso became the first to put on the medium compound tyre, immediately improving to second fastest and staying there until the end of the session. The Spaniard didn't really improve his time later on, while at the same time Raikkonen managed to post the third fastest time, completing just two attempts.

Lewis Hamilton on the other hand didn't find an improvement on his first attempt on the medium, but continuing on the same tyre for two more laps, the car found some speed, indicating that the Mercedes may need some time to get those tyres up to temperature.

On the other side of the box at Mercedes, Nico Rosberg was in trouble this time around, being sidelined for the entire session with gearbox problems. While it looked like Hamilton would enter qualifying on the back foot compared to his team mate, it's now the other way around.

Results

Pos.No.DriverTeamTimeGapLaps
144Lewis HamiltonMercedes1:25.519-23
214Fernando AlonsoFerrari1:25.9310.41213
377Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes1:26.0900.57119
419Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1:26.1140.59518
522Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1:26.2420.72321
61Sebastian VettelRed Bull Racing-Renault1:26.2900.77117
77Kimi RäikkönenFerrari1:26.3270.80815
826Daniil KvyatStr-Renault1:26.4370.91821
93Daniel RicciardoRed Bull Racing-Renault1:26.4820.96316
1027Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1:26.6081.08917
1120Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1:26.8291.31020
1221Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1:27.2071.68818
1311Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1:27.3121.79310
1425Jean-Eric VergneStr-Renault1:27.4791.96022
1599Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1:27.4981.97912
1617Jules BianchiMarussia-Ferrari1:28.0252.50619
1713Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1:28.1372.61820
1810Kamui KobayashiCaterham-Renault1:28.2652.74621
198Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1:28.4592.94014
204Max ChiltonMarussia-Ferrari1:28.5793.06019
219Marcus EricssonCaterham-Renault1:29.2513.73222
226Nico RosbergMercedesNo time-3