Zane Maloney made a strong start to his Monza weekend, finishing today’s Practice session fastest of all, thanks to the Rodin Motorsport driver’s time of a 1:32.285.
The Bajan driver was in strong form throughout and ended the session over a tenth clear of Invicta Racing’s Gabriel Bortoleto, as Zak O’Sullivan rounded out the top three for ART Grand Prix.
It was O’Sullivan though that was fastest of all after the first set of laps on a 1:34.577, beating Oliver Bearman to the top time by 0.174s.
But after rounding the track for the second time, Maloney went to the top of the leaderboard with a 1:34.060, only for Trident’s Richard Verschoor to eclipse him by 0.048s.
The Rodin driver later set a time of 1:33.664 to return to P1, with Hitech Pulse-Eight’s Paul Aron now his nearest rival, 0.076s behind.
But then came O’Sullivan again and he finished a lap of 1:33.646 to go back to the top of the timesheets.
The fastest time changed hands again, as Maloney went fastest once more. Moments later though, Dennis Hauger’s lap of 1:33.209 put him on top for the first time in the session.
The majority of the grid opted to pit with 20 minutes but returned to the track a few minutes later with Joshua Duerksen now fastest on a 1:32.953, two-tenths clear of Verschoor in second.
Rodin were showing good pace and while Maloney jumped to second, he was pushed down to third by his teammate Ritomo Miyata, who went fastest on a 1:32.946.
As we headed into the final 10 minutes of the session, times began to tumble as both Bearman and Bortoleto went quickest. However, it was Maloney again who ended up on top thanks to a 1:32.532.
He improved on his time on his next flying effort and moved to a 1:32.285, as O’Sullivan followed him across the line to jump up to second. However, the Briton was quickly demoted to third as Bortoleto went up to P2, finishing 0.145s off the top time.
As we entered into the final couple of minutes, the Red Flags were waved as Roman Stanek collided into the barrier at Serraglio. The session was not restarted leaving Maloney on top ahead of Bortoleto and O’Sullivan.
The drivers will now return to the paddock to look over the data with their teams as they prepare for Qualifying later today at 16:00 local time.
Formula 2 Media
