Hamilton makes fast start at Monza but ends up playing second fiddle to Vettel

The McLaren driver, however, still emerged with the fastest time of the day set in the initial 90-minute session around Monza when he posted a time of one minute 23.865secs. On that occasion Hamilton finished almost a second quicker than any of his rivals – with team-mate Jenson Button his nearest challenger – such was his instant rapport with the 5.793km track.

After remarking on Thursday of his frustration at being “an easy target” for the negativity he has attracted throughout what has so far primarily been a season to forget, it was a perfect riposte. Hamilton should also have finished top dog in the afternoon, yet despite ideal conditions with clear blue skies and temperatures of 29 degrees centigrade, his morning lap could not be bettered. At one stage he was on the cards to do so as he set a personal best in sector one, and was quickest of all in sector two.

However, in the final sector he was baulked by Alguersuari in his Toro Rosso and was forced to abort the lap, so forcing him to settle for second best behind Vettel.

The reigning champion, who is on course for back-to-back titles as he holds sway in the standings by 92 points to Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber, topped the standings with a time of 1:24.010, beating Hamilton by 0.036secs. That, however, was 0.145secs adrift of Hamilton’s hot lap in the morning, suggesting there is plenty more to come from the leading players in today’s qualifying.

Promisingly for Mercedes, seven-times champion Michael Schumacher was third on the timesheet, just over a third of a second behind Vettel. Ferrari, who normally like to give their fans something to cheer in Friday practice, had to settle for fourth and fifth quickest, with Felipe Massa ahead of Fernando Alonso on this occasion. Webber and Button were sixth and seventh, just under half a second down, with everybody else over a second off the pace.

The best of the rest was headed by Sauber duo Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi, with Renault’s Bruno Senna marginally ahead of his team-mate in Vitaly Petrov in tenth and 11th. In 12th and 13th, again team-mates were paired together in the form of Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta, the duo around 1.5secs down and split by 0.187secs.

At tomorrow’s race, Ferrari will honour the 50th anniversary of Phil Hill’s Formula One title, the first by any American driver, but the horror behind it will be left to others to recall.

Hill, who died in 2008, became champion by a single point after the Ferrari driven by team-mate Count Wolfgang Berghe von Trips was flung into the Monza crowd at 150mph after tangling with Jim Clark’s Lotus on the approach to Parabolica.

Eleven spectators were killed instantly, along with the driver. A further four, according to contemporary reports, died later in hospital although some official statistics put the overall toll at 13. The accident remains Formula One’s deadliest.

Von Trips, who had qualified on pole position, had needed only a third place to become Germany’s first world champion – 33 years before Schumacher finally achieved the feat.