Technical troubles held up Lewis Hamilton in Italian Grand Prix practice on Friday after the Mercedes driver had lapped more than half a second quicker than anyone else in the morning session. The Briton, who retired from the race in Belgium 12 days ago after teammate and championship leader Nico Rosberg hit the back of his car, missed an hour of the afternoon running as mechanics replaced sensors on his car. Hamilton was still fastest overall on the day, with a best time of 1: 26.187 set before lunch. Rosberg was top of the afternoon timesheets with a best of 1:26.225, just ahead of his teammate. Jenson Button, Hamilton's former teammate at McLaren, was second fastest in the morning in 1:26.810 with Rosberg - who has never been on the Monza podium - pushed back to third in 1:26.995. Hamilton is 29 points behind Rosberg in the championship with seven races remaining and is determined to claw his way back against his teammate, who was punished by the team for the Spa collision. Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest in both sessions with Williams' Valtteri Bottas fifth in the second practice. Button was sixth, who last won a race in 2012. Red Bull's quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel, last year's winner at the 'cathedral' of Italian motorsport, was sixth and seventh while Australian teammate Daniel Ricciardo was 16th and 10th. Ricciardo, as good as Italian to many of the home fans and chasing his third win in a row, was sidelined for some of the first session with a power unit problem. At the slow end of the field, Roberto Merhi made his debut appearance at an F1 weekend and lapped faster than regular race driver Marcus Ericsson in the other Caterham. Merhi handed the car back to Kamui Kobayashi, returning after being dropped by the team for Spa, for the rest of the weekend. F1 is dead? Among all the many banners in the main Monza grandstand extolling Ferrari and their drivers, one stood out on Friday as discordant as a V8 engine at an electric car race. "Ugly new circuits, ugly cars, no engine sound. F1 is dead," it declared. The protest, handwritten in blue and red ink on a white sheet, was still there long after practice for the Italian Grand Prix had finished and the fans gone home. The irony of someone buying an expensive ticket, at one of Formula One's oldest and most atmospheric racetracks, in order to declare a lack of interest was not lost on those in the garages opposite. "I don't think that one banner sums up the overall opinion about Formula One," said Ferrari principal Marco Mattiacci, while others made light of it. "Whose garage was it opposite? McLaren?," joked Red Bull's Christian Horner. "I think I recognise people from Formula E (the new electric series starting next week) putting that banner there," laughed Lotus’s principal Federico Gastaldi. "This is a fantastic race, it's history. Come on." "Very strange place to talk about ugly circuits," agreed Marussia's John Booth. "One of the most iconic circuits we go to." If there is one place on the Formula One calendar where the true, original spirit of the sport lives on, then Monza would be high on most people's lists along with Spa, Silverstone and Monaco. Yet the banner reflected the feelings of those followers who feel the sport, with its quieter V6 turbo hybrid engines and energy recovery systems and races in ever more exotic locations, no longer excites.
