Bortolotti stays on top in second practice at Monza

As was the case in FP1, the Italian was the only driver able to dip under the 1m41s barrier, with a 1m40.731s effort leaving him more than a quarter of a second clear of the field.

Romania's Mihai Marinescu kept up his own impressive start by leading the charge against Bortolotti, shaving fractions off his FP1 best to post a 1m41.002s in second.

Having set the pace at the start of the session Alex Brundle finished third fastest, just 16 thousandths of a second down the road from Marinescu.

Miki Monras improved by more than 0.2s in the afternoon but remained fourth, while behind him Mikkel Mac found a chunk of time to improve to seal fifth. The Swiss driver had been 16th and more than 2s off the pace in the morning.

Christopher Zanella, who is Bortolotti's main title rival despite being 60 points back, finished sixth fastest ahead of Tobias Hegewald and Ramon Pineiro, the last driver to finish within 1s of Bortolotti.

Thiemo Storz edged out Sunghak Mun and Kelvin Snoeks to finish eighth fastest, with less than 0.1s covering all three drivers.

Pos  Driver                Time       Gap
 1.  Mirko Bortolotti      1m40.731s
 2.  Mihai Marinescu       1m41.002s  + 0.271s
 3.  Alex Brundle          1m41.018s  + 0.287s
 4.  Miki Monras           1m41.133s  + 0.402s
 5.  Mikkel Mac            1m41.332s  + 0.601s
 6.  Christopher Zanella   1m41.371s  + 0.640s
 7.  Tobias Hegewald       1m41.554s  + 0.823s
 8.  Ramon Pineiro         1m41.710s  + 0.979s
 9.  Thiemo Storz          1m41.862s  + 1.131s
10.  Sunghak Mun           1m41.889s  + 1.158s
11.  Kelvin Snoeks         1m41.948s  + 1.217s
12.  Parthiva Sureshwaren  1m42.207s  + 1.476s
13.  Jack Clarke           1m42.299s  + 1.568s
14.  Maxim Snegirev        1m42.460s  + 1.729s
15.  Julian Theobald       1m42.471s  + 1.740s
16.  James Cole            1m42.512s  + 1.781s
17.  Plamen Kralev         1m42.623s  + 1.892s
18.  Luciano Bacheta       1m42.700s  + 1.969s
19.  Benjamin Lariche      1m42.851s  + 2.120s