We study the chemical evolution of the thick and thin discs of the Galaxy by comparing detailed chemical evolution models with recent data from the AMBRE Project. The data suggest that the stars in the thick and thin discs form two distinct sequences with the thick disc stars showing higher [α/Fe] ratios. We adopt two different approaches to model the evolution of thick and thin discs. In particular, we adopt: i) a two-infall approach where the thick disc forms fast and before the thin disc and by means of a fast gas accretion episode, whereas the thin disc forms by means of a second accretion episode on a longer timescale; ii) a parallel approach, where the two discs form in parallel but at different rates. By comparing our model results with the observed [Mg/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] and the metallicity distribution functions in the two Galactic components, we conclude that the parallel approach can account for a group of α-enhanced metal rich stars present in the data, whereas the two-infall approach cannot explain these stars unless they are the result of stellar migration. In both approaches, the thick disc has formed on a timescale of accretion of 0.1 Gyr, whereas the thin disc formed on a timescale of 7 Gyr in the solar region. In the two-infall approach a gap in star formation between the thick and thin disc formation of several hundreds of Myr should be present, at variance with the parallel approach where no gap is present.

Context. The pattern of chemical abundance ratios in stellar populations of the Milky Way is a fingerprint of the Galactic chemical history. In order to interpret such chemical fossils of Galactic archaeology, chemical evolution models have to be developed. However, despite the complex physics included in the most recent models, significant discrepancies between models and observations are widely encountered.Aims. The aim of this paper is to characterise the abundance patterns of five iron-peak elements (Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, and Zn) for which the stellar origin and chemical evolution are still debated. Methods. We automatically derived iron peak (Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, and Zn) and α element (Mg) chemical abundances for 4 666 stars, adopting classical LTE spectral synthesis and 1D atmospheric models. Our observational data collection is composed of highresolution, high signal-to-noise ratios HARPS and FEROS spectra, which were previously parametrised by the AMBRE project. Results. We used the bimodal distribution of the magnesium-to-iron abundance ratios to chemically classify our sample stars into different Galactic substructures: thin disc, metal-poor and high-α metal rich, high-α, and low-α metal-poor populations. Both high-α and low-α metal-poor populations are fully distinct in Mg, Cu, and Zn, but these substructures are statistically indistinguishable in Mn and Ni. Thin disc trends of [Ni/Fe] Conclusions. It is clearly demonstrated that Zn is an α-like element and could be used to separate thin and thick disc stars. Moreover, we show that the [Mn/Mg] ratio could also be a very good tool for tagging Galactic substructures. From the comparison with Galactic chemical evolutionary models, we conclude that some recent models can partially reproduce the observed Mg, Zn, and, Cu behaviours in thin and thick discs and metal-poor sequences. Models mostly fail to reproduce Mn and Ni in all metallicity domains, however, models adopting yields normalised from solar chemical properties reproduce Mn and Ni better, suggesting that there is still a lack of realistic theoretical yields of some iron-peak elements. The very low scatter (≈0.05 dex) in thin and thick disc sequences could provide an observational constrain for Galactic evolutionary models that study the efficiency of stellar radial migration.