Lewis Hamilton spearheads Ferrari one-two as Lando Norris struggles at Monza

Lewis Hamilton injected life into his difficult maiden campaign with Ferrari by topping the practice timesheet for only the second time this year since his high-profile move from Mercedes.

The seven-time F1 champion has struggled over the first 15 grands prix, culminating in his crash in last weekend's Dutch Grand Prix, albeit at the end of a weekend when he and Ferrari had suggested they were on an upward trajectory.

As to whether Ferrari had turned up its engines to grab headlines remains to be seen, but for Hamilton and Ferrari, with Charles Leclerc completing a one-two, it was at least a positive start to their home race at Monza.

Hamilton led the way with a time of 1:20.117s, finishing 0.169s clear of Leclerc, with Williams' Carlos Sainz completing the top three, but over half-a-second back on the 40-year-old Briton.

As for McLaren's Lando Norris, it was a sloppy session as he twice aborted laps on soft tyres due to clipping the gravel, leaving him down in sixth, 0.904s adrift.

Championship-leading team-mate Oscar Piastri sat out the session for reserve Alex Dunne.

After an early Ferrari one-two inside the opening 10 minutes, with lap times just outside the one minute 22s on medium tyres, it was not long before the times tumbled via a range of different drivers, including Norris and Alex Albon in his Williams, the latter on Pirelli's hard rubber.

With 15 minutes on the clock of the hour-long session, Red Bull's Verstappen burst through the 81-second barrier with a lap of 1:20.751s.

That was shortly after Isack Hadjar was shown a black-and-white flag for failing to follow race director Rui Marques' instructions relating to the escape road at the second chicane, cutting across it rather than taking the pre-defined route.

Dunne, in for Piastri for his second FP1 of the year, encountered a problem with his helmet early on that required a fix before he could continue. With 30 minutes elapsed, he had yet to set a time.

The F2 title contender was, however, the first on track with a set of soft tyres but was only 15th quickest initially, a second behind Verstappen, whose first soft-tyre run was only just under a tenth of a second quicker, due to a poor first sector as he purpled the second and third.

The four-time F1 champion complained of "no grip, sliding all over the place".

It was worse for Norris on his maiden soft rubber outing as he dropped his left-front wheel on the gravel of both Lesmo 1 and 2, whilst a second lap also saw him catch the gravel again out of Lesmo 2.

After 35 minutes, the session had to be red-flagged due to the sheer volume of gravel that had been deposited at the Ascari chicane.

At that stage, Verstappen continued to lead the way by just under two-tenths from Sainz, followed by Leclerc and Albon.

On his first soft-tyre run, Leclerc raised cheers from the grandstands with a lap four-tenths of a second clear of Verstappen. As for Hamilton, he was left with a sizeable gap to the Monégasque of 0.477s.

But with just under five minutes to run, Hamilton then jumped to the top of the timesheet, clearing Leclerc by 0.169s, which proved to be the best lap of the session.

Behind the top three, Verstappen was fourth quickest, followed by Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli, who encountered numerous moments of angst but did enough to finish 0.823s behind Hamilton.

Team-mate George Russell, however, finished the session with a technical problem that forced him to pull off track moments after the chequered flag had fallen. The Briton was eighth on the timesheet behind Albon.

Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso and Hadjar completed the top 10. Dunne was 16th, whilst another reserve Paul Aron, in for Franco Colapinto at Alpine, was slowest, two seconds back.