GASLY LEADS THE WAY IN MONZA

Pierre Gasly has opened his Monza weekend in fine style by taking the top spot in this morning’s free practice session at the fabled Italian circuit: the Frenchman stopped the clock at 1:31.669 early in the session for a time which went unanswered by his rivals, with Alexander Rossi and Rio Haryanto the closest to his best lap.

The session opened in sunny conditions which saw all of the field straight out on track. Rossi, Rene Binder and Sergey Sirotkin swapped the top spot between them in the opening minutes: Gasly claimed it as his own 11 minutes into the session before going even faster two minutes later to set a time which was not to be matched.

Not for a lack of trying, though: McLaren tester Stoffel Vandoorne claimed P2 within minutes, but it wasn’t until late in the session that Haryanto pipped the Belgian, with Rossi outdoing the Indonesian driver with just 3 minutes remaining in the session.

With little in the way of off-track escapades throughout the session times were extremely tight: behind the top three Vandoorne, Binder, Sirotkin, Richie Stanaway, Alex Lynn, Arthur Pic and Mitch Evans will all think they have a shot when it counts, in this afternoon’s qualifying session just a few hours from now.