Red Bull third fastest team in FP2, Max fifth

Published on 02 September 2016 by Stefan Meens

Max Verstappen followed his eighth place in FP1 by a solid fifth in the second Friday free practice session. With his team mate Daniel Ricciardo in sixth, it means Red Bull are the third team behind both Mercedes and both Ferraris. The former dominated once again with Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton leading the way.

After the session, in which Red Bull Racing focussed on long runs, Max said: “It was a good day on track. We knew that it would be a more difficult weekend for the team as this is definitely the most challenging track for us on the calendar, but I think it wasn’t too bad today and we can definitely improve for tomorrow. We found a good balance in between the sectors so it’s now up to us and the car.”

Despite to progress made, the Dutchman remained realistic for the rest of the weekend. “For the moment we are a little bit too far behind Mercedes, but if we get everything sorted for tomorrow, we can get closer. They definitely look very strong. Difficult to say what tomorrow brings, it will for sure be tougher than Spa and I think you can clearly see that, but we’ll do our best.”

Italian Grand Prix - Monza - Friday 3 September 2016

01 44 Lewis Hamilton      Mercedes                    1:22.801           40
02  6 Nico Rosberg        Mercedes                    1:22.994  +0.193s  42
03  5 Sebastian Vettel    Ferrari                     1:23.254  +0.453s  33
04  7 Kimi Räikkönen      Ferrari                     1:23.427  +0.626s  28
05 33 Max Verstappen      Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer   1:23.732  +0.931s  25
06  3 Daniel Ricciardo    Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer   1:24.003  +1.202s  33
07 14 Fernando Alonso     McLaren Honda               1:24.259  +1.458s  24
08 77 Valtteri Bottas     Williams Mercedes           1:24.299  +1.498s  41
09  8 Romain Grosjean     Haas Ferrari                1:24.516  +1.715s  35
10 22 Jenson Button       McLaren Honda               1:24.549  +1.748s  28
11 19 Felipe Massa        Williams Mercedes           1:24.556  +1.755s  20
12 27 Nico Hulkenberg     Force India Mercedes        1:24.587  +1.786s  40
13 11 Sergio Perez        Force India Mercedes        1:24.653  +1.852s  42
14 21 Esteban Gutierrez   Haas Ferrari                1:24.674  +1.873s  33
15  9 Marcus Ericsson     Sauber Ferrari              1:24.981  +2.180s  25
16 94 Pascal Wehrlein     MRT Mercedes                1:25.083  +2.282s  38
17 55 Carlos Sainz        Toro Rosso Ferrari          1:25.240  +2.439s  31
18 31 Esteban Ocon        MRT Mercedes                1:25.275  +2.474s  13
19 20 Kevin Magnussen     Renault                     1:25.555  +2.754s  39
20 26 Daniil Kvyat        Toro Rosso Ferrari          1:25.614  +2.813s  33
21 12 Felipe Nasr         Sauber Ferrari              1:25.643  +2.842s  31
22 30 Jolyon Palmer       Renault                     1:25.833  +3.032s  45

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