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FP1 Report

The opening practice session of the Italian Grand Prix weekend descended into farce, as the heavens opened above the Monza circuit and left desperate mechanics fighting to clear the water from their garages rather than concentrating on the important business of achieving a half-decent setup with their cars.

The session began without any rain, albeit under heavy clouds and with the track still damp from an earlier shower, but even with the threat of more rain to come, the teams were still loath to put on anything approaching a show in the early minutes of the session. Only the Force India pair of Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella and the Honda of Rubens Barrichello bothered to set a time, with the Force India twins staying out to practice slipstreaming, possibly planning to use the tactic tomorrow in an effort to allow at least one of their cars to escape Q1.

As a few other drivers began to tiptoe around, many getting caught out by the slick conditions (Sebastian Vettel and Kazuki Nakajima were two drivers who had themselves a spinny on the damp track), the heavens opened again and the rain began to steadily fall. All the drivers dashed back to the safety of the pits, despite the fact that much of the weekend is predicted to be wet, and some wet testing info might actually be a bit useful. But they're not here to entertain, after all, so stay in the garage they (largely) did.

The odd driver went out for a quick run on the wet track, Jenson Button having a go for Honda and the Ferraris coming out to play late on, but realistically the session was over almost before it had begun. Adrian Sutil, having topped the times of the few early runners, ended the session on top of the pile to give the Force India mechanics something to print out and stick on their bedroom walls, but the session really meant nothing. Only 14 drivers bothered to set times, with neither McLaren or BMW bothering, and all in all we simply had ourselves a massive anti-climax.

Barrichello ended second for Honda, ahead of Fisichella and the best of the wet-weather runners, Timo Glock for Toyota. The most busy man was Sebastien Bourdais, taking advantage of the chance for some wet testing for Toro Rosso and completing 20 whole laps of the track.

The final moments of the 90 minute session produced the farcical scenes of mechanics and team members desperately trying to keep the water out of their garage areas, sweeping and pumping water away as the Monza pit threatened to flood entirely under the weight of the downpour. Conditions got so bad that the session was red flagged a few minutes before the official end time.

With the forecast for more showers throughout the day, it remains to be seen whether any meaningful running will be achieved in the afternoon practice session. We can only hope so, though.

FP2 Report

Kimi Raikkonen "bounced back" from his disappointment in Belgium to top the times in an altogether less rubbish afternoon practice session at Monza, possibly spurred on by the random (i.e. not that random at all, given where we are this weekend) announcement that the lugubrious Finn would remain at the Italian team until 2010.

After the washout of the morning, FP2 began in far happier circumstances, with the track bathed in sunshine. Though the morning moisture was still there, and there was a progressive drop in lap times throughout the 90 minute session, as the track surface dried off like an under tended flowerbed.

Raikkonen set the early pace as the drivers made their first tentative steps onto the track on intermediate tyres, with Lewis Hamilton staying conspicuously in the pits while conditions were less than ideal, with other cars still slipping wide at a number of corners.

After around 20 minutes, Sebastien Bourdais led the switch to dry tyres and the times began to tumble. Seabass unsurprisingly went quickest, but he was overwhelmed by a flurry of drivers, including his team mate Vettel, Nico Rosberg in the Williams and Kimi (again). Robert Kubica's BMW then claimed top spot with a 1:23.931 despite messing up his lap prior to that with a spin at the Rettifilo chicane, surpassing then-P1 holder Felipe Massa as he did so.

As the top boys completed one final set of flyers late on, most struggled to improve on their mid-session times, except for Raikkonen, who pipped Kubica to top spot in the session by seven hundredths of a second. Close indeed. Kubica kept second place though, from his team mate Nick Heidfeld, continuing his impressive late-season work in 3rd. Then came Hamilton, Rosberg and Massa, with a quiet Heikki Kovalainen back in 7th place. Mark Webber, Adrian Sutil and Sebastian Vettel completed the top half of the times, with Sutil again impressing in less-than-perfect driving conditions, despite a couple of moments when he "Hamiltoned" a chicane or two, though the German covered himself in less glory when he completely missed the pit lane entry point at the end of the session.

Further down, Giancarlo Fisichella impressed for Force India as well in 13th, just behind David Coulthard and Bourdais and ahead of the Hondas and Kazuki Nakajima, while Toyota had a stinker, Timo Glock ending 17th and Jarno Trulli 19th. Their rivals for 4th place in the constructors championship had an even worse time of it, with the Renaults of Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet Jr ending 18th and 20th respectively, Piquet's session-bottoming performance rounded off with a spin at the Rettifilo which ended his session.

All in all, though, few drivers were pushing to the limit today, with the track conditions being far from ideal. Given the recent three day test at the Italian track, teams will likely still have enough setup data anyway, but with the weather predicted to remain unsettled for the rest of the weekend, we could be in for a wild ride at Monza.