Carlos Sainz in disbelief as Ferrari threaten Max Verstappen at the Italian GP

01 September 2023 , 19:02

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Carlos Sainz in disbelief as Ferrari threaten Max Verstappen at the Italian GP

Carlos Sainz admitted he was baffled after topping the timesheets in Friday practice at Monza.

Normal service went ahead in the first session of the day as Max Verstappen went quickest. But the Red Bull racer, chasing what would be a record 10th consecutive Formula 1 victory this weekend, found things more difficult in the second hour of running as he tested different set-up options on the high-speed circuit.

All you need to do to figure out who most of the Monza crowd is supporting this weekend is take a glance at the grandstands. Those wearing red and flying Ferrari flags were delighted to see Sainz take advantage of Verstappen's struggles to go quickest in FP2.

The team's SF-23 car has been very temperamental throughout the season so far. And so even Sainz, celebrating his 29th birthday, was surprised with how well his machine was behaving as it hit the Monza track.

"It can't get much better than that," he said with a grin. "It was a smooth day, to be honest. It's great to be back at a track like Monza and from the first lap of FP1 to feel the car normal again after such a difficult weekend at Zandvoort.

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"As soon as we put the car on track here for some reason it just adapted a lot better and it was a lot easier to set up and drive it per corner. It doesn't mean that we're going to be P1 tomorrow and in the race, but at least the feeling is much better.

Carlos Sainz went quickest in second practice at Monza on Friday (Sky Sports)

"We put the car on track, it's the same car basically, but for some reason it just felt a lot better, which is what puzzles me more. But let's see tomorrow, I think everyone's going to lower fuel tomorrow, higher engine modes and it's going to be a bit of a different picture."

He admitted, though, that Verstappen and his team will still be the team to beat on race day. The Spaniard added: "Dreaming is for free, no? This is one of my favourite sayings. Especially in tracks like this, I think we can all dream and it's for free, no-one can take it away from us.

"But, being realistic and also looking at our race pace, that's when we started seeing the true pace of the Red Bull. They were clearly again three-tenths to half a second ahead in race pace, and over 50 something laps – that's a lot of lap time."

Daniel Moxon