Hamilton, a victor at the so-called Temple of Speed in each of the previous two seasons, is hoping to become the first driver since five-time champion Juan Manuel Fangio to triumph at the Italian Grand Prix for three consecutive years.
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As Kimi Raikkonen was fourth in the other Ferrari on 1m 23.490s, Daniel Ricciardo headed Red Bull partner Max Verstappen in fifth and sixth, on 1m 23.709s and 1m 23.740s, though the Dutchman – who’d earlier appeared to impede Rosberg on a quick lap – lost some time going wide at Ascari, passing Kevin Magnussen’s slowly moving Renault.
If he wins Sunday’s race, Hamilton will be the first man since Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio in the 1950s to complete a Monza hattrick.
“I am obviously very happy”, said Hamilton.
“Monza is always an awesome track to drive and the fans always come out to show their support. We made good progress through our programme across the two sessions and our long run pace felt good”, he said.
“We’ve still got some work to do to analyse all the data and prepare the auto but I’m confident we can take the fight to the rest of the grid”.
In between those two laps Rosberg found himself badly baulked by Verstappen in his Red Bull through the second chicane. The new engine is a small step, it’s part of the normal progress, we would not put in the vehicle anything that wouldn’t improve our performance.
“We have decent speed”, Vettel added. In general the vehicle feels good, but we still need to improve from where we are, we need to make it feel good in every corner and bring it together; but other than that, the first impression is positive. The first impression is positive.
“Overtaking up front is very hard so pole position is definitely a good place to start”, Hamilton said.
“We also need to analyse the data from running all three tyres across the two sessions”.
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen wears his balaclava at pits during the second practice session for Sunday’s Formula One Italian Grand Prix, at the Monza racetrack, Italy, Friday, Sept. 2, 2016. He was 13th, with team-mate Jenson Button 11th, the drivers expecting their most hard weekend of the year because of the lack of power of the Honda engine, which still lags despite recent updates.
Around a “power circuit” it is expecting to struggle on, McLaren-Honda ended FP1 a notable 11th and 13th with Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso respectively, though the latter would end the session with a suspected gearbox issue.
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Massa, who came within one point of winning the world championship and survived the life-threatening injuries he sustained in a freak accident during qualifying for the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, will compete in his final race in Abu Dhabi at the end of the campaign.
