Button fastest as practice starts at Monza

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Jenson Button was fastest for McLaren in the first practice session of the weekend at Monza.

He was a tenth of a second faster than Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull with Lewis Hamilton setting third fastest time in the other McLaren.

Both MP4-25s ran with very steep rear wings in practice as they tested how well their F-duct works on the high-speed Monza track.

Robert Kubica was fourth fastest for Renault, nine-thousandths of a second faster than Nico Rosberg.

Rubens Barrichello and Bruno Senna stopped on the track during the session, the former appearing to stop with a transmission problem on his Williams.

Several drivers had problems with the first chicane, locking their brakes and running across the run-off. Mark Webber, sixth fastest, ran wide there and Kamui Kobayashi knocked over one of the marker boards.

Vitantonio Liuzzi was another driver to take a trip down the run-off. He ended the session 0.4 seconds faster than team mate Paul di Resta, who was driving Adrian Sutil’s car. Sutil will be back in the car for second practice – when he was fastest at this circuit last year.

The two Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa were eighth and ninth, and Nico Hulkenberg’s Williams completed the top ten.

Pos.CarDriverCarBest lapGapLaps
11Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’23.69328
25Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’23.7900.09727
32Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’23.9670.27425
411Robert KubicaRenault1’24.1200.42725
54Nico RosbergMercedes1’24.1290.43630
66Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’24.4460.75326
715Vitantonio LiuzziForce India-Mercedes1’24.5120.81919
88Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’24.5430.85024
97Felipe MassaFerrari1’24.6480.95522
103Michael SchumacherMercedes1’24.7561.06326
1110Nico HulkenbergWilliams-Cosworth1’24.8411.14828
1214Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1’24.9231.23023
1312Vitaly PetrovRenault1’25.2921.59925
1416Sebastien BuemiToro Rosso-Ferrari1’25.3181.62529
1522Pedro de la RosaSauber-Ferrari1’25.3201.62720
1623Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’25.3341.64124
1717Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari1’25.8972.20419
1824Timo GlockVirgin-Cosworth1’26.7723.07919
1918Jarno TrulliLotus-Cosworth1’26.8983.20512
2025Lucas di GrassiVirgin-Cosworth1’26.9563.26317
2119Heikki KovalainenLotus-Cosworth1’27.3743.68114
2221Bruno SennaHRT-Cosworth1’28.2564.5638
239Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth1’28.5164.8234
2420Sakon YamamotoHRT-Cosworth1’29.8706.17717

2010 Italian Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    35 comments on “Button fastest as practice starts at Monza”

    1. “Robert Kubica was third fastest for Renault”

      4th fastest Surely ?

        1. Totally agree ;))

    2. Renault engines are pretty Good eh….

    3. For predictions i will keep my eyes closed i burned myself too many times about FP results

      What was wrong with Rubens old age sudenly dropped on him?

      1. Stopped on the circuit with a loss of drive, according to Autosport.

        1. Didn’t know i were replying when there were no comments and Keith wasn’t finished yet!

    4. So much for the power disadvantage of the Renault… Interesting to see Liuzzi up there in 7th as well. I read on twitter, by an F1 commentator (cant remember who, think it was James Allen), that Force India could be second fastest in terms of pace this weekend.

      1. Could be just detract 0.5 sec from Liuzzi time and you see the possibilities for FI

        1. Great minds think alike!

      2. Perhaps it was here, I did mention it in the preview.

        Liuzzi’s typically been a few tenths off Sutil and he had some kind of problem stopping him from getting the most from his F-duct at Spa.

        If he’s in the same situation here it stands to reason Sutil might easily be half a second quicker, putting Force India up with the McLarens and Red Bulls.

        1. That could well be the case. That said though, Liuzzi went well at this track last year in his first weekend back in an F1 cockpit so I think he might be closer to Sutil here or maybe that’s just wishful thinking as I like to see drivers doing well at their home GP.

        2. Nah, it was definitely twitter, havent been keeping up with this site in the last couple of days, been rather busy working. Making some time to read through now though! =D

    5. [i]Robert Kubica was fourth fastest for Renault, nine-[b]thousadths[/b] of a second faster than Nico Rosberg.[/i]

      small mistake.

      1. nm. you piked it up as soon as i could respond =) top stuff.

    6. do you think they will match 1′21.046 (Rubens Barrichello, 2004)?
      great warm up, those new curbs look like they wont be running over them in a hurry.
      watched Micheal bounce around when he tried.

      1. No. The current cars have too little power and too much downforce/drag for that. So far they’re only three tenths faster than they were last year.

        1. Although, having said that, they would have all been on hard tyres this morning whereas they’d have used mediums last year. Still I don’t think we’ll see a 1’21.0 – best last year was 1.9s off.

    7. Good to see Virgin and Lotus just a second off the back of the Toro Rossos..

      …oh and GO JENSON!! He could do with a good result this weekend, and beating Lewis will boost his confidence and put his championship back on track..

    8. Any one any idea of the straight line speeds? Is Mclaren running the F-Duct this practice or next?

      1. Yes – see paragraph three.

    9. Right now what really impressed me was the rear wing angles, most of the teams are hidding their game.

    10. @ Pablo : I think Buemi was clocked at 345 kph, quickest of this session…

    11. I would like to see a top ten topspeed graph if possible or just the times is fine for me.

      1. Looking at the speed trap data on formula1.com (http://www.formula1.com/results/season/2010/837/6779/speed_trap.html) it is clear to see that cars are likely to running very different strategies and downforce levels.

        For example, I wonder if Mark Webber had more downforce than Vettel, or just a lot more fuel and different tires, and it is clear to see that the Ferrari’s were holding back power/soft tire/lots of fuel, and had a lot of downforce, similar to the McLaren big wings.

        It is interesting that Rosberg and Schumacher have similar speed trap figures, but more than half a second of time between them. They seem to have gotten a lot of drag away, but it has only helped Rosberg to be competitive, so far.

    12. Buemi i think got that when slipstreaming alonso otherwise was about 339kph.

    13. BUE – 345
      ROS – 339
      MSC – 337
      VET – 336
      TRU – 336
      KOV – 335

      1. Clear to see the effect of that very flat rear wing on the Lotuses!

    14. McLaren fastest over a complete lap and, according to Ted Kravitz, have the most downforce on the car…

      Will be interesting to see what happens when they take the F-Duct off…or even if they can just dial out some downforce to get rid of a bit of extra drag but retain the F-Duct…

      If there’s not a lot in it, could we see Lewis without it and Jenson with it (more likely to be that way round as Jenson is more likely to benefit from the extra stability the extra downforce would give)??

      And you have to assume that they were using old engines this morning too…

      1. That looks like a fair assessment to me. Expect to see McLaren much faster come tomorrow.

        I just love the Lotus car now, its been growing on me all season.

        In F1 2010 career mode, that’ll be the first car I try to get a drive in.

    15. Does anybody know what is the highest speed ever recorded on speed trap? Came across couple of different informants, some say its’ Montoya in testing 2005., some point out Pizzonia a year before…

      1. Montoya did at least 229mph at Monza, in testing I believe. That may be about the high water mark.

    16. I think Mclaren is tinkering with the idea of running more wing than Red Bull,to gain time on the Variante Ascari, Parabolica and the Lesmo corners, given that their F duct works well and offset the extra wing on the straights.

    17. Button & Vettel do need some strong result this weekend in order to fight for the championship.

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