Lewis Hamilton clocked the fastest time during first practice for the Italian Grand Prix, comfortably ahead of McLaren team-mate Jenson Button after a sunny morning at Monza.
Hamilton's time of 1:23.865 was 0.921 faster than Button's best effort as the drivers got to grips with their low drag setups for the weekend ahead and sampled the medium compound Pirelli tyres. Vettel was the fastest non-McLaren driver with a time well over a second off Hamilton and a couple of tenths faster than Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber.
Ferrari had a relatively quiet session as Fernando Alonso sat out of the final 15 minutes and set just the seventh fastest time behind Adrian Sutil's Force India in fifth and Vitaly Petrov's Renault in sixth. The Ferrari drivers were comparing front wings throughout the session and may well have had a different fuel level programme to complete compared to the much faster McLarens and Red Bulls.
Felipe Massa, Sergio Perez and Jaime Alguersuari finished the 90 minutes in eighth, ninth and tenth, meaning there were seven different cars in the top ten. One notable absence was Mercedes with Michael Schumacher 11th and Nico Rosberg back in 18th as both cars clearly struggled for grip. Schumacher ran wide in the Parabolica after losing the rear end of his car on entry, although it is still early in the weekend and the silver arrows are expected to be at the sharp end of the grid come qualifying. Several drivers made mistakes at Monza's three chicanes with Sebastien Buemi struggling to keep his Toro Rosso on the track early in the session and splashing into the gravel at Ascari.
There were problems of a different kind for the backmarkers as both Lotuses appeared to lose drive on circuit. Karun Chandhok, who was stepping in for Jarno Trulli at Lotus in the morning, had an issue with his steering wheel early in the session and Heikki Kovalainen ended his FP1 when he lost second gear. Timo Glock struggled with exhaust sensor problems in his Virgin and trawled around the circuit, while Jerome d'Ambrosio's session ended early with a puff of smoke from the rear of his car.
© ESPN EMEA Ltd.
Feeds: ESPNF1 Staff - Feedback
No comments:
Post a Comment