Monza F2: Ticktum tops practice ahead of Pourchaire

The Brit set a 1m33.042s in the first session of the Italian Grand Prix weekend, leading by over two tenths from second-placed Pourchaire, driving for ART.

Daruvala finished in third, with David Beckmann, who replaces Matteo Nannini at Campos Racing, in fourth.

Championship leader Oscar Piastri finished in fifth place, just three tenths behind the leader, while just one second separated the top 11.

ART’s Christian Lundgaard was first out on track for the 45-minute session at Monza, the first F2 round since Silverstone in July.

Ten minutes in, Liam Lawson set the initial benchmark with a 1m34.613s before several other drivers put in fast laps and Ticktum took the top spot with a 1m33.189s.

Marcus Armstrong was struggling with his DAMS-run car, failing to set a representative lap and returning to the pits with an issue, before eventually managing to complete four laps by the end of the session.

Ralph Boschung was also forced to return to the pits with a problem, almost grounding to a halt upon entry before eventually making it over the line before the Campos mechanics pushed his car back to the garage.

Into the last third of the session, Ticktum remained at top of the timesheets, having bettered his earlier time by almost two tenths, followed by Pourchaire and Red Bull junior Daruvala.

The virtual safety car was out with 10 minutes to go after Roy Nissany suffered a huge old-school engine blowout on the exit of the Ascari chicane, with huge plumes of smoke billowing from his DAMS car.

Alessio Deledda got in the way of Daruvala while the Carlin driver was on a flying lap, locking up and bumping across the kerb at the chicane, before the Italian also blocked UNI Virtuosi’s Zhou out of the corner.

Enzo Fittipaldi finished 20th in his debut session in F2, having stepped up to the Charouz team to replace Beckmann.

Jake Hughes, returning to the grid to fill in for an injured Jack Aitken at HWA, finished in P16.

F2 Monza - Practice results

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Dan Ticktum	Carlin	1'33.042
2	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	1'33.267	0.225
3	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	1'33.275	0.233
4	David Beckmann	Campos Racing	1'33.409	0.367
5	Oscar Piastri	Prema Powerteam	1'33.425	0.383
6	Marino Sato	Trident	1'33.504	0.462
7	Christian Lundgaard	ART Grand Prix	1'33.508	0.466
8	Bent Viscaal	Trident	1'33.662	0.620
9	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	1'33.683	0.641
10	Liam Lawson	HitechGP	1'33.721	0.679
11	Jüri Vips	HitechGP	1'33.781	0.739
12	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	1'33.785	0.743
13	Guanyu Zhou	UNI-Virtuosi	1'33.840	0.798
14	Felipe Drugovich	UNI-Virtuosi	1'33.892	0.850
15	Lirim Zendeli	MP Motorsport	1'33.927	0.885
16	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	1'34.052	1.010
17	Guilherme Samaia	Charouz Racing System	1'34.156	1.114
18	Robert Shwartzman	Prema Powerteam	1'34.229	1.187
19	Roy Nissany	DAMS	1'34.386	1.344
20	Enzo Fittipaldi	Charouz Racing System	1'34.660	1.618
21	Alessio Deledda	HWA Racelab	1'35.790	2.748
22	Marcus Armstrong	DAMS	1'52.651	19.609
View full results