Birthday boy Sainz surprised with Ferrari pace in Monza

Carlos Sainz got the perfect present for his 29th birthday by topping the timesheets at the end of Friday's practice for the Italian Grand Prix at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza.

The Ferrari driver had been second fastest in FP1 when he was pipped by Max Verstappen by just 0.046s. In the later session his nearest challenge came from his former McLaren team mate, Lando Norris.

Sainz' benchmark time of 1:21.355s was less than two hundredths of a second quicker than Norris, and Sainz admitted that he hadn't expected to be so quick in the team's home race having struggled for pace last time out in Zandvoort.

“It can’t get much better than that,” he said. “It was a smooth day, to be honest ... It’s great to be back at a track like Monza, and from the first lap of FP1 to feel the car normal again after such a difficult weekend at Zandvoort.

"The car looks to be back on the pace this weekend and the track characteristics seem to be suiting us better," he noted. “It’s the same car basically but for some reason it just felt a lot better, which is what puzzles me.

“As soon as we put the car on track here for some reason it just adapted a lot better and it was a lot easier to set up and drive it per corner," he continued. "It doesn’t mean that we’re going to be P1 [on pole in qualifying] tomorrow and in the race, but at least the feeling is much better."

• Read also: Birthday boy Sainz puts Ferrari on top in second practice as Perez crashes

Sainz said there was no harm in the Tifosi aspiring to some welcome success tomorrow. "Dreaming is for free, no? That's one of my favourite sayings, especially on tracks like this.

"We can all dream and it’s for free, no one can take it away from us," he added. "But let’s see tomorrow. I think everyone’s going to lower fuel tomorrow, higher engine modes, and it’s going to be a bit of a different picture.”

Sainz had benefitted from Verstappen losing his flying lap attempt to heavy congestion. However Sainz was realistic about the Red Bull's superiority when it came to true race pace.

"It’s only Friday and tomorrow is not going to be easy, as the field is super tight with several cars within a couple of tenths. We’ll keep trying to find more performance, especially for the long runs where I think there is more room for improvement.

"Being realistic, looking at our race pace, that’s when we started seeing the true pace of the Red Bull. They were clearly again three-tenths, half a second ahead in race pace, and over 50 something laps that’s a lot of lap time.

"It’s great to drive in front of this amazing crowd here in Monza! Let’s keep pushing!" he added.

After a disappointing time last week at Zandvoort where he struggled for pace and sustained early floor damage, team mate Charles Leclerc was also feeling much more buoyant about Ferrari's home race. "Our performance was quite good.

"However I struggled with the car balance," he admitted. "We'll have to work on that for tomorrow, especially for the short runs, as with high fuel it seems to be going better.

"It was a rather tricky day overall," he said. “I went in a bit of a different direction, so we need to reset a little bit for tomorrow and focus a bit more on the low fuel runs. We were struggling a bit with the balance of the car there.

"I am happier, especially on the high fuel it was better," he added. "On the low fuel on my side it wasn’t great [but] I know what to do for tomorrow, so I’m not too concerned.”

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