Free practice sessions are supposed to be dress rehearsals, not demolition derbies. Someone forgot to tell Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen that on a Saturday morning at Monza, where the pair very nearly wrote each other out of qualifying for reasons that amounted to absolutely nothing.
George Russell topped FP3 ahead of Hamilton and Max Verstappen, with Kimi Antonelli fourth, as Mercedes used the session to rehearse a slipstream tow ahead of qualifying, full details on that classification are in our FP3 report. But the moment that will live longest in the memory came right at the end, when two title-winning drivers decided a Saturday morning lap time was worth risking their entire weekend over.
A Tow with a Purpose
Antonelli starts Sunday’s race from the back of the grid due to an engine penalty, and Mercedes clearly isn’t planning to let him rot there without a fight. With the slipstream proving unusually potent around Monza’s long straights, the team used FP3 to practice exactly that: Antonelli towing Russell down to Curve Grande, a tactic that produced a 1:22.687 for the Briton, over three tenths quicker than his teammate’s best effort at the time.
It’s a sensible bit of homework given where Antonelli will start on Sunday, but it also says something about how much faith Mercedes has in the tow’s effectiveness here. When your championship leader is starting from the back, you don’t leave anything to chance, not even in a session that means nothing on paper.
Russell wasn’t the only one benefiting from a slipstream. Arvid Lindblad used a tow of his own to jump into the top four late on, a reminder that at Monza the draft is worth more than most upgrades teams will bring all year.
Verstappen’s Ferrari Gripe
Before the fireworks with Hamilton, Verstappen was already simmering. Stuck behind a Ferrari during one of his quicker runs, he vented to race engineer GianPiero Lambiase in language that left little to interpretation.
“This f***ing Ferrari again. My God, always in the way.” – Max Verstappen
It’s the kind of complaint that sounds petty in isolation but reads differently given the season Verstappen is having. He sits sixth in the standings, 130 points off Antonelli’s lead, a gap that makes any talk of him as a title contender fanciful at this stage. Every tenth matters more than it used to, and getting baulked by a rival team’s car in practice is exactly the sort of thing that used to barely register but now clearly gets under his skin.
Two Champions, One Silly Near-Miss
Then came the moment that actually mattered. On a late qualifying simulation run, Hamilton overtook Verstappen on track, only for the Red Bull driver to fight back immediately. The pair raced each other properly, as if points were on the line rather than nothing at all, and came close enough to touching that both backed out of their laps. Hamilton went off at the chicane in the aftermath.
Ask yourself why two drivers with a combined haul of world titles decided a meaningless FP3 lap was worth trading paint over. There’s no sensible answer. Hamilton had already been struggling with visibility in traffic all session, telling race engineer Carlo Santi he “cannot see over my rear tyres” and needed help navigating slower cars. Add wounded pride from being repassed by a title rival he no longer fears on raw pace, and you get exactly the kind of unnecessary drama that makes team principals reach for the paracetamol.
Ferrari will be relieved nothing came of it. Hamilton sits third in the standings on 183 points, level with Russell but 59 behind Antonelli, still very much in the mix for a strong finish to the season if not realistically the title itself. A crash in a throwaway practice session would have been a spectacularly pointless way to compromise that.
Leclerc’s Wobble and a Deleted Lap Reinstated
Charles Leclerc had his own dramas, going second fastest before having his time deleted for track limits at Turn 7, only for it to be reinstated later, restoring him to a place between the Mercedes duo. His teammate Hamilton had a moment of his own at the second Lesmo, putting a wheel in the gravel, while Oscar Piastri came within inches of doing the same thing elsewhere on track.
None of it derailed Ferrari’s session in the way the near-miss between Hamilton and Verstappen might have. But it’s a reminder that Monza’s kerbs and gravel traps punish anyone who gets greedy, and on a day when track temperatures hit 50C, grip was never going to be generous.
What This Sets Up for Qualifying
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | George Russell | Mercedes | 1:22.219 |
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 1:22.445 |
| 3 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 1:22.569 |
| 4 | Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | 1:22.580 |
| 5 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 1:22.625 |
| 6 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 1:22.708 |
| 7 | Arvid Lindblad | Racing Bulls | 1:22.724 |
| 8 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | 1:22.898 |
| 9 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 1:23.022 |
| 10 | Franco Colapinto | Alpine | 1:23.101 |
Qualifying starts at 14:00 UTC, check the calendar for your local time. With Antonelli already condemned to the back for Sunday, Mercedes’ tow rehearsal was really all about Russell, and the pace he showed suggests it worked. Whether Hamilton and Verstappen can keep their competitive instincts in check for a session that actually counts is the more interesting question. On this evidence, don’t bet on it.
