Carlos Sainz put Ferrari at the top of the timesheets on their home soil as he set the pace during Friday’s second practice session for the Italian Grand Prix, leading the way from McLaren’s Lando Norris and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, who crashed late in the session.

With an Alternative Tyre Allocation in play this weekend, it was another busy session around the ‘Temple of Speed’ as drivers and teams gathered more valuable data on the soft, medium and hard compounds in use – incidentally the softest from Pirelli’s range.

FP1: Verstappen heads Sainz and Perez in busy opening practice session in Monza

One man who missed out on that running was Lance Stroll, who had only just taken over the cockpit from reserve driver and FP1 runner Felipe Drugovich when he came to a halt coming out of the Ascari chicane due to a fuel system issue in the opening minutes.

However, there were also some traffic-related dramas for Perez’s team mate, Max Verstappen, who described his middle sector as “shocking” as he dodged several slower-moving cars en route to a time that would leave him just over a quarter of a second down on Sainz’s benchmark.

In another entertaining radio exchange, Verstappen asked the Red Bull pit wall for a second soft-shod lap to “have a proper read”, only for his Race Engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, to declare that “it’s not qualifying” and insist on no changes to the run plan.