Leclerc Tops Monza Practice as Ferrari Takes Early Advantage

Charles Leclerc lit up Monza in first practice, giving Ferrari exactly the start they craved in front of their own tifosi.

In brutal heat on the old royal park asphalt, Leclerc clocked the benchmark time, edging Lewis Hamilton by 0.173 seconds to top the opening session of the Italian Grand Prix weekend. The Ferrari sliced through the high-speed sweeps with the kind of authority that sends a murmur through every garage along the pit lane.

Hamilton, a seven-time world champion and still a master of a qualifying lap, had to settle for second, with team-mate George Russell slotting into third for Mercedes. The silver cars looked tidy and consistent, but on raw pace in FP1, they were chasing red.

Behind them, Liam Lawson produced one of the standout performances of the session. Drafted in again at Red Bull in place of the injured Isack Hadjar, Lawson responded with a composed and rapid run to fourth fastest. He not only kept the car out of trouble in the searing conditions, he finished ahead of the man everyone is hunting in the title race.

Kimi Antonelli, the championship leader and local favourite, ended the session fifth in the other Mercedes, 0.636 seconds adrift of Leclerc’s best. On paper, that gap is sizeable. On a Friday at Monza, it is also a warning shot from Ferrari.

The session did not run smoothly from start to finish. The red flag made an early appearance when rookie Colton Herta, standing in for regular Cadillac driver Sergio Perez, ground to a halt out on track with a hydraulic problem. His car stopped, marshals sprinted, and the field filed back into the pit lane to escape the heat and reset.

When the running resumed, Ferrari went back to work with clear intent. This is a weekend loaded with opportunity. Antonelli, who leads Hamilton and Russell by 59 points in the drivers’ standings, will start Sunday’s race from the very back after taking a new power unit and collecting the inevitable grid penalty.

That punishment has blown the title fight wide open at Ferrari’s home race. It hands Leclerc, and the team in red, a golden chance to claw back ground on the dominant Italian in front of their own fans.

On Friday afternoon, with the grandstands already filling and the heat shimmering over the main straight, Leclerc made the first move. The question now is whether Ferrari can turn this early roar at Monza into something far more significant when the lights go out.