Jake Dennis paced this morning's Free Practice session at Monza. The Briton set a new series lap record time of 1m45.087s aboard the #991 Paradine Competition BMW, while a remarkable 47 cars were separated by less than one second.
The new benchmark is unlikely to last for long: resurfacing work at Monza has resulted in a significant speed increase, allowing Dennis to knock almost a second off the best time set in 2023. Even quicker laps are likely to follow in tomorrow morning's Qualifying.
For now, however, Dennis is the fastest man at the Temple of Speed. He set his time midway through the two-hour session and ultimately finished almost a tenth clear of his closest rival. The #991 BMW is entered in the Bronze Cup this weekend, with Darren Leung and Toby Sowery completing the crew. Notably, this car has previously competed under the Century Motorsport banner.
While the timing screens were static for much of the second hour, Sheldon van der Linde produced a late flyer to make it a BMW one-two aboard the #32 Team WRT entry. The South African – the previous lap record holder at Monza – was just 0.096s shy of Dennis. Matteo Llarena also left it late to go P3 overall, putting the #19 Grasser Racing Lamborghini on top of the Silver Cup order in the process.
Fabian Schiller was fifth overall in the #2 Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed, 0.212s shy of Dennis, closely followed by Jordan Pepper (#163 Grasser Racing Lamborghini), Ben Green (#36 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin) and Marco Sørensen (#7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin). Arthur Rougier topped the Gold Cup class in 18th overall. The French driver circulated in 1m45.411s at the wheel of the #111 CSA Racing Audi, finishing well clear of his nearest class rival.
The session opened with two red flags inside the first 20 minutes. The first was caused by Patrick Kolb, who dropped the #80 Lionspeed Porsche into the gravel exiting the second Lesmo. The car was quickly recovered and the session was able to resume.
But not for long. Barely 10 minutes later, Christopher Haase found himself equally beached at the wheel of the #99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi. The German driver – for whom such mistakes are rare – had spun at the Ascari chicane. With the early teething problems out of the way, the remainder of Free Practice ran without interruption.
Cars will be back on-track at 14:10 for a one-hour Pre-Qualifying session.
> Results: Free Practice