Italian Grand Prix analysis: How the top 5 teams fare out

Having spent all their remaining engine tokens for this race, the Mercedes team dominated the Friday practice sessions very easily, leaving the others much much behind. As we head towards the Italian Grand Prix, things seem pretty mis-matched everywhere apart from the lead.

If everything goes well for them, they will continue their domination during the race and the Qualifying as well with Lewis Hamilton the quicker of the two Silver Arrows.

We analysed the Time Laps of the Friday session of the top 5 teams- Mercedes, Ferrari, Williams, Red Bull and Force India and their drivers to get an estimate of the race pace of each one of them.

(The following lap times are based on the predicted fuel loads on the basis of long runs of each of the drivers and the effective difference between the compounds taken care of )

First going by driver-by-driver analysis, Lewis Hamilton was more than 0.4s faster than his team mate Nico Rosberg and if the conditions are equal, will maintain a gap of nearly 0.455s over his team mate. Rosberg looks in serious trouble as of now considering his lack of pace over his team mate.

The quickest of the two Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel lies third with an estimate of 0.708s behind Lewis Hamilton. That is again a sign of worry as Ferrari will look to clinch a victory at their home race.

Next comes the two Williams who showed strong pace during the long runs. Valtteri Bottas lies fourth according to our predictions with a gap 0.835s to Lewis Hamilton followed by Felipe Massa, a further 0.908s behind. Following the two Williams comes the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen 1.186s behind the leading Mercedes.

Following is the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg who showed some considerable pace with the upgraded chasis and of course the Mercedes engine. His gap to Hamilton is predicted to be 1.556s per lap if the conditions are ideal.

Next comes the impressive Russian, Daniil Kvyat with an expected gap of 1.687s. The Red Bulls predicted a tough race for themselves and took a strategic penalty by changing their engines to be able to secure a good result next race in Singapore. Both Kvyat and Ricciardo will receive a ten place grid penalty which might rob them of any good result as such.

Splitting the two Bulls comes the Force India of Sergio Perez. He comes a distant 1.687s behind but still ahead of the slower of the two Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo with an estimated gap of 1.715s.

If the Team by Team analysis are taken into account, Mercedes are of course expected to dominate, but surprisingly if the longer runs are to be believed, Williams look on for a good positive result, ahead of Ferrari, trailing the Mercedes by 0.644s while Ferrari trail behind with a gap of 0.72s.

Following them comes the Force India showing good pace, but a passive 1.394s behind the Mercs and more than 0.6s behind the Ferrari itself.

Red Bulls tops up the top 5 teams with a rough gap of 1.4s behind the mighty silver arrows.

If this analysis is to be believed, the battle for the lead might be restricted to the two Mercs while the other positions will see a lot of battles. With the Red Bulls taking the grid penalty, things might mix up here and there with Lotus taking on the spots left by the Bulls.