Friday Practice Report
Italian GP
After a first session topped by the dominant McLaren duo of Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen it was the impressive Force India of Adrian Sutil that rounded out the first day of free practice for the Italian Grand Prix at the top of the time sheets. Sutil had battled it out with the two Renault drivers and it was newcomer Romain Grosjean who outpaced his accomplished double world champion team mate to take second place at the end of the final session of the day. Alonso settled for third ahead of Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren in fourth. The BMW Saubers of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld were fifth and seventh in the final session sandwiching the leading Toyoya of Timo Glock in sixth. Kimi Raikkonen, Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastian Buemi closed out the top ten fastest in the final session. Vitantonio Liuzzi making a welcome return to F1 with the Force India team finished a very respectable twelfth fastest. Not so impressive was the ex Force India and newly signed Ferrari driver Giancarlo Fisichella who was last, some 1.6 seconds adrift of his old team mate Adrian Sutil. Fisichella has a big challenge on his hands especially this weekend in fron of the hordes of expectant tifosi sure to be present at Monza. Comparisons are sure to be drawn between him and the outgoing Luca Badoer who was pilloried by one and all after failing to get on the pace in the previous two races. Equally worrying was the performance of championship leader Jenson Button who was only a tenth or so faster than Fisichella in nineteenth place. Team mate Barrichello was also pretty lack lustre finishing sixteenth. The Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were also outside the top ten in the final session, recording fourteenth and eighteenth best times.
