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Russell topped final practice at Monza with a 1:22.219, but the number that will worry everyone is 21 deleted laps in a single hour, most of them at Turn 1.
George Russell topped final practice at Monza with a 1:22.219, and Lewis Hamilton put a Ferrari second in front of the tifosi, 0.226 behind.
The more important number is 21. That is how many lap times the stewards deleted in a single one hour session, and it points straight at the thing that will decide qualifying this afternoon.
Every figure below has deleted laps excluded, which is not a detail: it changes the order.
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Speed trap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Russell | Mercedes | 1:22.219 | 325 | |
| 2 | Hamilton | Ferrari | 1:22.445 | +0.226 | 327 |
| 3 | Verstappen | Red Bull | 1:22.569 | +0.350 | 323 |
| 4 | Antonelli | Mercedes | 1:22.580 | +0.361 | 323 |
| 5 | Norris | McLaren | 1:22.625 | +0.406 | 324 |
| 6 | Leclerc | Ferrari | 1:22.708 | +0.489 | 325 |
| 7 | Lindblad | Racing Bulls | 1:22.724 | +0.505 | 326 |
| 8 | Piastri | McLaren | 1:22.773 | +0.554 | 331 |
| 9 | Gasly | Alpine | 1:22.898 | +0.679 | 322 |
| 10 | Colapinto | Alpine | 1:23.101 | +0.882 | 322 |
Behind them: Hulkenberg 11th, Lawson 12th, Bortoleto 13th, Bearman 14th, Tsunoda 15th, Sainz 16th, Ocon 17th, Albon 18th, Alonso 19th, Bottas 20th, Perez 21st and Stroll 22nd, 3.336 off the top.
The top eight are covered by 0.554 seconds. At a circuit where the entire lap is 5.7 km of mostly full throttle, that is nothing.
This is the story of the session.
The timing data flags 21 deleted lap times in FP3 alone. Sixteen were track limits, and ten of those were at Turn 1, the first chicane at the end of the main straight. The ten drivers who lost a time there were Alonso, Antonelli, Colapinto, Hamilton, Leclerc, Norris, Piastri, Russell, Stroll and Verstappen, which is to say most of the front of the grid. The other six track limits deletions were spread thinly: two at Turn 4 and one each at Turns 5, 6, 7 and 9.
For scale, we measured the entire 2026 season to date at 296 deleted lap times across twelve rounds, an average of about 25 per race weekend. Monza produced 21 in a single practice hour. The full season breakdown is in F1 track limits explained.
The remaining five were double yellow infringements, and those are the ones with teeth. Carlos Sainz and Alexander Albon were both noted for yellow flag infringements and will be investigated after the session, which means a grid penalty is possible before qualifying has even started. Albon had already been given a warning earlier in the hour for failing to follow the race director's instructions at an escape road.
Hamilton and Sainz lost three lap times each, more than anyone else.
Two more incidents were looked at and dropped: Russell and Piastri for impeding at Turn 6, and Verstappen and Hamilton at Turn 11, both reviewed with no further investigation.
The gap between first and second was 0.226. The sector times show it was not built in one place.
Hamilton was actually quicker than Russell in the first sector, 27.046 to 27.112, which is the sector containing the long run to Turn 1 and the first chicane. He then lost 0.128 in sector two and another 0.164 in sector three.
That is a recognisable shape at Monza: a car that is strong on the straights and into the braking zones, and softer through the middle of the lap where Lesmo and Ascari reward downforce the low-drag setup has given away.
The telemetry traces bear it out. Hamilton reached 337 km/h, the highest peak of the two, against Russell's 335, and carried more speed into the first chicane at 326 against 324. Russell took it back through the corners.
Stitch the fastest sector from anyone in the session together and you get a theoretical best of 1:21.967.
Nobody got close. Russell's session-topping lap was 0.252 off that theoretical time, and the three sectors came from three different teams. On a circuit this short, with a tow available to anyone who finds one, that is a lot of lap time still sitting on the table for qualifying.
Only 144 of the 471 laps run in the session were clean enough to count as representative race running, which is what final practice usually looks like: teams have done their race preparation on Friday and spend this hour on low-fuel qualifying simulations.
What little there was came from the midfield.
| Driver | Team | Compound | Laps | Median | Degradation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gasly | Alpine | Medium | 7 | 1:24.843 | +0.106s/lap |
| Colapinto | Alpine | Medium | 7 | 1:25.483 | -0.223s/lap |
| Albon | Williams | Soft | 7 | 1:25.872 | -0.031s/lap |
None of the front-running teams produced a usable stint. Fuel loads are never published, so no practice lap time is a clean measure of car performance, and a seven lap sample with fuel burning off is not a degradation model. Treat the table as evidence that Alpine ran long and the top teams did not, and nothing more.
The track surface ran between 48.8C and 54.0C, with air at 30.1C to 32.3C and no rain.
That is the hottest qualifying-day surface anywhere on the calendar. When we measured mean track temperature across a full season of qualifying sessions, Monza came out top at 48.7C, and the coldest, Las Vegas, sat at 14.1C. That 34 degree range is the widest single environmental variable in Formula 1, and we broke down what it does to a car in the Las Vegas circuit guide.
Hot asphalt at Monza means the soft tyre gives its best over one lap and very little after it, which is part of why every one of the 22 drivers set their session best on the soft.
More of the weekend's radio is in the 2026 team radio archive.
Three things worth watching at 14:00.
Mercedes are still the qualifying team. They have taken ten of the first twelve poles of 2026, and Russell has now led final practice as well. The pattern and the reasons behind it are measured in Mercedes have taken 10 of 12 poles.
Ferrari have a real chance, and it is Hamilton's. Second at Monza, quickest in the first sector, and the second highest speed trap figure of the top six. Ferrari have not taken a pole all season.
Turn 1 will decide somebody's afternoon. Ten deleted times at one corner in one hour, at a circuit where a single tenth covers three grid places, is the clearest warning the session gave.
On 2024 machinery Monza pole was a 1:19.327. The 2026 cars are running about 3% slower than the previous generation at circuits raced in both years, which we measured in are F1 cars getting faster, so a pole somewhere around 1:21.6 to 1:21.9 would be par. FP3's best was 1:22.219 with fuel still in the car.
Qualifying at Monza is decided in hundredths, and half of what decides it never reaches the broadcast.
The Formula Dream app runs a live Dashboard through every session: every car on the circuit map, and a timing tower with lap times, gaps and intervals, tyre compound and age, plus flag and safety car alerts as race control calls them. Today the column that matters is sector times, because the FP3 sectors came from three different cars. You also get live driver radio as it is broadcast, and every FIA document of the weekend as it is published, which is where deleted laps and the Sainz and Albon investigations will appear before anyone reports them.
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George Russell, with a 1:22.219 on the soft tyre. Lewis Hamilton was second for Ferrari at +0.226 and Max Verstappen third at +0.350, with deleted laps excluded.
Twenty-one, in the timing data. Sixteen were for track limits, ten of those at Turn 1, and the other five were double yellow infringements. For comparison, the whole 2026 season so far has produced 296 deletions across twelve rounds, an average of about 25 per weekend.
Carlos Sainz and Alexander Albon were both noted for yellow flag infringements to be investigated after the session. Albon had also been warned earlier for failing to follow the race director's instructions at an escape road.
Oscar Piastri at 337 km/h. Lewis Hamilton recorded 327 and George Russell 325 on their fastest laps.
1:21.967, from Piastri's first sector, Norris's second and Verstappen's third. That is 0.252 quicker than Russell's actual session-topping lap.
Abu Dhabi cut 21 corners to 16 to stop processional finales. We measured on-track position changes since, and Yas Marina now beats Monza.
