Hamilton tops Monza practice

A happy Lewis Hamilton bounced back to top the times ahead of his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg in Friday’s second free practice for this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.

The championship leader and defending three-time world champion, who leads Rosberg by nine points in the title race, was second behind him in the opening session, but re-booted his title bid with a strong showing in the afternoon.

On a hot late summer’s day at the old Autodromo Nazionale in Monza’s former royal park, the 31-year-old Briton clocked a best lap in one minute and 22.801 seconds to outpace German Rosberg by 0.193 seconds.

Hamilton is seeking to complete a hat-trick of successive Italian wins and to claim his 50th Formula One victory in Sunday’s race. SUPPORT FOR LEWIS “It’s been a really good day,” said Hamilton. “Monza is an amazing track to drive and the fans always come out to show their support. We made good progress through our programme across the two sessions and our long run pace felt good. “We split the tyre compounds between Nico and myself, so we could learn as much as possible going into qualifying and the race and we’re looking quite strong. “We’ve still got some work to do this evening to analyse the data and prepare the car, but I’m confident we can take the fight to the rest of the grid.”

Sebastian Vettel was third fastest ahead of his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, the Italian team closing the gap behind the Mercedes to less than half a second as they made use of their latest upgraded power units.w