F1-EL3: Sebastian Vettel remains the benchmark at Monza

Sebastian Vettel will he be able to take pole this afternoon at Monza? After setting the best time at the end of the first day of testing, the driver Red Bull was again the fastest this morning with both types of tires. The Championship leader set a lap time of 1’24”360 with the medium tires, ahead of the Ferrari by Fernando Alonso by almost three tenths. There Team tested the benefit of aspiration with its two drivers during the last session with rather positive results. However, Felipe Massa only finished seventh, six tenths behind the first Red Bull. The second RB9, that of Mark Webber, ranks third ahead of the Mercedes de Lewis Hamilton. The Brackley team had a difficult start to the day as Nico Rosberg got stuck in the pits after only five laps completed, the German having suffered an overheating problem on his W04.

After being behind with the hard tires, Sergio Pérez climbed into the top five with the mediums, ahead of the Toro Rosso de Daniel Ricciardo by a single thousandth, the two drivers being half a second behind the reference time. Jean-Eric Vergne is classified at the gates of the top ten, but the Frenchman is only a few thousandths behind the single-seaters of Jenson Button, Pastor Maldonado and Kimi Räikkönen who returned to a car with a classic wheelbase. The Saubers of Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Gutiérrez are the last cars within the same second of the best time. Romain Grosjean only took 14th place after suffering from serious grip problems although he had shown his advantage during the first tests.

The Force India seems to be behind on the Monza circuit. Adrian Sutil only takes 16th position behind Williams de Valtteri Bottas performing well on hard tires, while Paul di Resta follows in 17th place after finishing his session in the tire wall at the Parabolica. Charles Pic ranks 18th, half a second ahead of his teammate Giedo van der Garde. Jules Bianchi is one second behind his compatriot from the Caterham team. The Frenchman is narrowly ahead of his teammate Max Chilton after struggling during practice.

Qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix will be contested from 14 p.m. and can be followed live on AUTOhebdo.fr. Click on this link to see photos of the tests.