Mercedes comfortably ahead in first practice at Monza

F1 Grand Prix, GP Italy, Autodromo Nazionale di Monza

Mercedes were by far the fastest during the first free practice session of the Italian Grand Prix weekend. While Ferrari were still the fastest of the competition, neither of the scarlet cars got within a second of Hamilton's pace setting laptime.

While both Ferraris were closely matched in third and fourth, the Red Bulls - running an interestingly low-profile rear wing - were closely behind as well.

The Force India duo, led by Sergio Perez, were 7th and 8th faster, another half a second further down. Stoffel Vandoorne and Felipe Massa completed the top 10 for McLaren and Williams respectively.

The session saw some mild rain 15 minutes from the end of the session, but nothing that necessitated full wet or intermediate tyres. All drivers set their best times of the session on the super softs, the tyre that is clearly favoured given the tyre selection teams made for this weekend. Only 7 drivers tried soft tyres during the session while Williams' Massa and Stroll only ran the supersofts, opting to not run the harder compounds at all.