Monza: Hamilton starts strong

In the battle between the last three World Champions during the first free practices at Monza, Lewis Hamilton (2008) beat Jenson Button (2009) and Sebastian Vettel (2010). A session which smiled on McLaren, but not on Ferrari, with Alonso and Massa only finishing in 7th and 8th place...

Published on 09/09/2011 à 11:52

⁰ View comments)

The sun and temperatures of 24°C greet the drivers for this first free practice session of the Italian Grand Prix. Heikki Kovalainen, Jerome d'Ambrosio, Kamui Kobayashi, Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari are the first to take the track of the Monza autodrome, partly resurfaced, from the exit of the Ascari chicane to the exit of the Parabolica.

During the first quarter of an hour, after an installation lap, the entire field returns to its box and Jérôme D?Ambrosio is the only one to complete two timed laps. It is then recorded in 1'43"577.

We will then have to wait until the end of the first half hour for the track to come alive, first thanks to Jaime Alguersuari who strings together the laps and improves the Virgin driver's time by more than 8 seconds. Hag took over the lead around the 40th minute. On his return to the pits, he was credited with a time of 1'25"914. The reigning world champion is closely followed by McLaren-Mercedes de Lewis Hamilton (+0 »076), his teammate Mark Webber (+0 »868) and the Lotus-Renault by Vitaly Petrov (+1 »191). Hamilton, who remained on the track, took the reference time shortly after, in 1:24:512.

At the end of the first hour, the leaders returned to the track to continue their work on the set-up of the single-seaters and try to dislodge the Briton, whose mechanics were working on the front wing. Button then follows his teammate by 0??897. Vettel then inserts himself between the McLaren drivers, at 0??719.

At the end of the session, Hamilton (1) and Button (23) improve and are ahead of the two drivers. Red Bull, Vettel (1?25??231) and Webber (1?25??459). In a last effort, Adrian Sutil moved into the top 5 (1) and dislodged Petrov (26). Fernando Alonso is 7th, Massa 8th. A result which should not satisfy the many supporters of Ferrari. Sergio Perez and Jaime Alguersuari complete a top 10 near which Michael Schumacher.

Among the drivers disturbed by their mechanics this morning are Karun Chandhok (Team Lotus), Timo Glock (Virgin) and Jérôme d?Ambrosio, forced to park his Virgin in the first chicane. Its mechanics will now have work to do to get it back on track before the second session which starts at 14 p.m.