F1-EL2: Vettel hits hard in Monza testing

Sebastian Vettel warned the competition this afternoon during free practice at Monza. The Championship leader set the best time of the day with a time of 1’24”453 and six tenths ahead of his teammate Mark Webber. THE Red Bull remained very competitive with both types of tires on the long stints carried out at the end of the session. The Lotuses also seem to be performing well since Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean signed the same time, failing by a hundredth of the Australian's RB9 despite the extended wheelbase enjoyed by the 2007 world champion.

The first Ferrari, that of Fernando Alonso, is in fifth place, but is more than eight tenths behind, ahead of the Mercedes de Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. As for Felipe Massa, he only climbed to eighth position after encountering the same gearbox problems as Nico Hulkenberg This morning. The Brazilian, first driver more than a second behind Sebastian Vettel, still finished ahead of the McLaren of Jenson Button and Sergio Pérez who complete the top ten. Esteban Gutiérrez finished 12th between the Force Indias of Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta. Jean-Eric Vergne finished 15th between Pastor Maldonado and Nico Hülkenberg, ahead of his teammate by almost four tenths Daniel Ricciardo. Valtteri Bottas follows ahead of Max Chilton and Charles Pic who complained at length about the behavior of his Caterham. Giedo van der Garde and Jules Bianchi complete the list.

The final free practice session for the Italian Grand Prix will take place tomorrow from 11 a.m. Qualifying will take over from 14 p.m.