Patronise F1

Italian GP. FP2 Report. Adrian Sutil was the man topping the timesheets for Force India in the second Free Practice session this afternoon at Monza. The German had a late start to the session as his team had to change his engine, but once on track he was consistently near the top of the times, and set the final benchmark in the final couple of minutes of the session.

Behind him in second was another impressive performer, Romain Grosjean in the Renault. The Franco-Swiss driver lapped sufficiently quickly to outpace his double World Champion teammate, who was nevertheless in a strong third place in the now KERS-equipped Renaults, who may well be a real force to be reckoned with this weekend.

The McLarens and BMWs had a solid session, with the Stuttgart concern taking 4th (Kovalainen) and 11th (Hamilton), and the Munich mob ranking 5th (Kubica) and 7th (Heidfeld). Between the Beemers was Timo Glock, after a mini-recovery for Toyota which saw Jarno Trulli also in 10th place. Kimi Raikkonen was 8th for Ferrari ahead of Kazuki Nakajima's Williams, with the Japanese outpacing his teammate Rosberg (17th) again when it doesn't really matter.

Tonio Liuzzi continued his solid return to the sport in 12th, just under a second slower than teammate Sutil, but former Force India driver Giancarlo Fisichella might be looking longingly at the timesheets and wondering why he's bothered to jump ship to Ferrari. The Italian lapped consistently throughout his 36 tours, but they were consistently slow enough to keep him penned in 20th and last place. Come back Luca, all is forgiven?

What of the Championship contenders? It wasn't a great Friday for either Brawn (16th and 19th for Barrichello and Button) or Red Bull, whose running was restricted by the lack of engines their drivers have left, with their two drivers completing the least laps of anybody to end up 14th (Webber) and 18th (Vettel).