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McLaren headed the practice times on Friday ahead of the Italian Grand Prix.

But Lewis Hamilton, who set the day’s fastest time, was just 0.058s quicker than Fernando Alonso over their best laps.

And on sector times, Ferrari had the edge. Felipe Massa’s three best sector times put him one tenth of a second faster than Hamilton, and he was almost matched by Alonso.

The times show Ferrari have a quick car for their home race – and underline how close the front-runners are at Monza.

Jenson Button said: “Looking at the data, there are quite a few teams out there that look quick too: it’s very close and that’s going to make it an interesting race.”

Here is the data from the first two practice sessions for the Italian Grand Prix.

Sector times and ultimate lap times – second practice

Ferrari were not as quick as McLaren in the first part of the lap but more than made that up elsewhere, as Alonso explained: “Compared to Spa, here we are on the pace, maybe we have a bit more downforce and make up a bit of time at the two Lesmos and the second chicane, while we are losing out in the first sector with the two long straights.

“We will analyse these details this evening and tomorrow we will try and improve also in terms of top speed, which was probably our weak point today.”

Longest stint comparison – second practice

This chart shows all the drivers’ lap times (in seconds) during their longest unbroken stint:

After four consecutive wet Friday practice sessions the teams finally had the chance to do some long runs and try to suss out tyre performance over a race stint.

They discovered the tyres are holding up well at Monza, where Pirelli has brought the medium and hard compounds. Kimi Raikkonen managed a particularly long stint with very consistent times.

Alonso was unable to do a long run at the end of second practice having been sidelined with a gearbox problem – though fortunately not one that will leave him with a grid penalty.

Having observed the progress of his team mate and rivals Alonso said: “I expect we will see different strategies in qualifying because there seems to be very little difference between the medium and hard tyres. In the race we will have to use both and so in the end it balances out.”

Nico Rosberg was also encouraged by Mercedes’ performance: “It seems that we have a good pace on high and low fuel levels,” he said.

Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery said the medium tyre appeared to offer little in the way of a clear performance advantage over the more durable hard tyre: “We might see different approaches tomorrow, and some drivers could even try a one-stop strategy for the race: the winning tactic in Belgium a week ago, which used the same compounds.

“Although there are many places in Monza that put a lot of energy through the tyres, the overall wear rate has been very good today, which allowed a number of the drivers to set their fastest times later on in their runs.”

Complete practice times

Neither Red Bull made it into the top ten, raising the possibility of their drivers struggling to make it into Q3 tomorrow, as Sebastian Vettel failed to do at Spa.

Mark Webber said: “We’re working hard, but we’re not there yet. We were a bit more competitive on the longer runs in practice today. We’re not normally the Friday world champions, so we’ll do some work now for tomorrow. We often find a good step ahead of qualifying.”

The first practice session also saw the debut of Ma Qing Hua, the first Chinese driver to participate in an official F1 session. Ma described it as an “extraordinary experience”:

“From the start I felt comfortable in the car and working with the team, and I accomplished all the targets we set ourselves.

“We started with quite a long stint on hard tyres and then we made changes to the set-up as I adapted to the F112. It was an important step for me, but also for motorsport in China since it’s a very young sport there but with a great potential.”

Speed trap – second practice

A big part of the reason for Red Bull’s troubles is their poor straight-line speed – over 4kph slower than any other car. Significantly the Lotuses, which use the same Renault engines, were the fastest, indicating the problem is not necessarily a lack of horsepower.

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Image © Ferrari spa/Ercole Colombo