Lewis Hamilton set the pace for Mercedes in Friday practice at the Italian Grand Prix as his likely replacement Andrea Kimi Antonelli crashed on his debut for the team.
Hamilton headed McLaren’s Lando Norris by 0.003 seconds, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz third in the second session. They were followed by their team-mates Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc.
Championship leader Max Verstappen was only 13th fastest after making a mistake on his qualifying simulation run and running wide at Parabolica.
But the Dutchman looked quick on the race-simulation runs later in the session, pretty much neck and neck with title rival Norris.
In the first session, Verstappen was fastest by 0.228 seconds, with a time set on the soft tyre, from Leclerc, who was on the medium tyre. McLaren’s Lando Norris was third ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.
Antonelli drove George Russell’s car in first practice, as part of his preparations for F1 – he is expected to be named as Russell’s team-mate at Mercedes next year in the coming days, following Hamilton’s move to Ferrari.
The 18-year-old Italian went fastest on his first flying lap but – in trying to further improve after Hamilton had beaten his time by 0.6secs – he took too much speed into Parabolica and crashed heavily.
He was unhurt but the car was badly damaged and was not ready for Russell until nearly 25 minutes into the second session.
Russell’s day was then compromised further when Kevin Magnussen crashed his Haas a few minutes later, leading to a red flag for just over 10 minutes.
But Russell still managed to end the day sixth fastest after a run on the soft tyres.
Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg, RB’s Daniel Ricciardo and the Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll completed the top 10.
Mercedes F1 team principal Toto Wolff said he believed that the pressures and circumstances of Antonelli’s debut might have been too much for him.
“Clearly here, with everything piling up on him in Monza, that is very difficult to cope with. Is that the reason why he put it in the wall? Maybe,” Wolff said.
“For him, it feels certainly terrible, but it is part of the development curve. What we see is there is performance, and we have even seen that in the few laps we have seen but what he did, the car couldn’t take.
“A strong driver needs to recover from these things, cope with the pressure, but obviously this weekend wasn’t easy for him – you still need to compete in F2, you have all these shenanigans around you in Monza, an Italian kid that is being hyped, first time in a Mercedes car.
“That must be a heavy burden but if he wants to be a champion one day he needs to cope with that, and I’ve no doubt that he can and he will.”
