Free Practice 1: McLaren takes the lead

The sky was clear for this first free practice session and temperatures were already high with 25 degrees in the air but only 28 degrees on the track.

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in this free practice session at the Monza Grand Prix with a time of 1:23.936. He built a lead of 0.4 seconds over his teammate, Heikki Kovalainen, and a little more than 0.5 seconds over Adrian Sutil and Fernando Alonso in his KERS-equipped Renault.

But it was not an easy session for the world champion, as the fuel flap on his McLaren posed a problem. He was also the author of several off-track excursions through the chicanes, all while jumping Monza’s new curbs. Adrian Sutil proved that Force India’s performance is not undeserved and placed just behind the McLarens, who were untouchable this morning. Fernando Alonso secured a solid 4th place, with the KERS working wonders on this high-speed circuit.

Behind these four men, it’s extremely close. From Heidfeld, 5th, to Nakajima, 14th, 10 drivers are within 4 tenths! Nick Heidfeld, first of all, put in consistent and solid runs and is just ahead of Sébastien Buemi, an impressive sixth in this session. Jenson Button is seventh, 8 tenths behind Lewis Hamilton, 5 places ahead of his teammate Barichello.

Although Brawn GP is not currently among the best, this session can reassure the men from Brackley as the Red Bulls are behind with Mark Webber in 9th position and especially Vettel in 18th, who didn’t have the chance to pound the track much and only came out of his garage at the end of the session for a few laps after making a mistake in his first stint. The young German is doing what he can to preserve his Renault engines. He only has one new engine left for the rest of the season, and he leaves it to Webber to evaluate the settings and tires, as their driving styles are very similar. Indeed, they are the most homogeneous driver pair on the grid. « We only have a few scheduled programs this morning, with Mark, while Sebastian will only do a few laps. Sebastian keeps himself busy doing crosswords… » explains Christian Horner, the director of Red Bull Racing, not without humor.

At Ferrari, Giancarlo Fisichella is already in the game by matching the times of his teammate, the Roman places 8th, a few hundredths ahead of Kimi Räikkönen in 10th. However, the Italian driver used soft tires to achieve this time while most of the drivers remained on hard tires. The advantage of the soft tires is estimated at 4 tenths at Monza.

Robert Kubica is less than 0.2 seconds behind his teammate but, in this extremely tight field, that means a gap of 6 places and he is therefore in 11th position. As in Belgium, the Williams are struggling with Nico Rosberg and Nakajima in 13th and 14th.

Next are Romain Grosjean, discovering the KERS, Vitantonio Liuzzi, and Jaime Alguersuari, who are more than a second behind their teammates. Monza is a more challenging circuit to master than it appears. Vettel and the two Toyotas bring up the rear. It’s known that the curbs have always been a problem for the Cologne single-seater, and they struggle with sudden changes of direction. They find themselves 2 seconds off the best time.

As expected, many drivers explored the run-off areas while acclimating to light cars with 12% to 15% less aerodynamic downforce than on any other track in the calendar. The prize goes to Timo Glock, who treated us to impressive unscripted moves on the new curbs of the first chicane.

The second session will give us more indications. The track will have gained adhesion and teams will evaluate the soft tires.

Free Practice 1 Results – Italian GP – Friday, September 11, 2009:

The maximum speeds recorded: