He continues to be the quickest: On Saturday, the third and last free practice session for the Italian Grand Prix was held at Monza. The session was won by Max Verstappen (Red Bull), who is currently the leader in the Formula 1 world championship. Even if Verstappen is successful on Saturday at 4:00 p.m., he will not be able to keep the pole position for the following race. He will finish the race on Sunday with five penalty places after being penalized for changing an internal combustion engine over the permitted allotment for the season.
After setting the second fastest time in these three free practices, Charles Leclerc, who is now in second place in the championship and is 109 points behind leader Max Versappen, is currently the favorite to win pole position in qualifying. In contrast to Sergio Pérez (Red Bull) and Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), who are third and fourth fastest behind Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, respectively, Leclerc will not be given a time penalty this weekend. The first one will start at the rear of the grid, and the second one will have ten spots deducted from their starting position. Because many other drivers have already been demoted, qualifying is expected to be very competitive. Esteban Ocon (Alpine) has been demoted by five places, Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo), Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher (Haas) have been demoted by fifteen places, and Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) and Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) have been relegated to the back of the grid.
Fernando Alonso (Alpine), Lando Norris (McLaren), and George Russell (Mercedes), who finished fifth, sixth, and seventh in the most recent testing, are all capable of doing well in these conditions. But on Sunday, despite being fined, Verstappen will continue to be the favorite given his speed (during practice, he beat Leclerc by a margin of 0″347 seconds) and the characteristics of the “Temple of speed” in Monza, where the straight lines are favorable to passing other drivers.