Italian GP: Friday practice report
By Huw Alban
September 8 2006
Today saw probably the quietest Friday practice sessions of the year, which is no surprise beaing in mind that most of the teams were testing in Monza only a week ago. MF1 put their time to good use with Christijan Albers putting in the 11th fastest lap time of the second session.
The only noteable thing about the first free practice session was its silence. It goes on record this season as being the quietest with only 12 drivers out of a possible 29 actually posting times.
The session started badly for Anthony Davidson, with the red flag thrown after only 3 minutes so that his smoking Honda could be removed from sector 2.
After a 10 minute stoppage the session resumed, but for the next 30 minutes the only action from MF1 was an installation lap from Tiago Monteiro.
With 20 minutes to go Christijan Albers put in his installation lap, followed by Giorgio Mondini 10 minutes later.
The last 5 minutes of the first session saw a handful of laps from all three MF1 drivers, with Tiago Monteiro putting in the better time of all three; a 1.25.413, good enough for 6th fastest.
Full timesheet from the first free practice session for the Italian Grand Prix:
1 Sebastian Vettel Sauber-BMW 1:23.263
2 Robert Kubica Sauber-BMW 1:23.745
3 Alexander Wurz Williams-Cosworth 1:23.868
4 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes 1:24.037
5 Neel Jani STR-Cosworth 1:24.196
6 Tiago Monteiro MF1-Toyota 1:25.413
7 Robert Doornbos RBR-Ferrari 1:25.578
8 Christijan Albers MF1-Toyota 1:25.766
9 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:26.708
10 Sakon Yamamoto Super Aguri-Honda 1:27.310
11 Franck Montagny Super Aguri-Honda 1:27.597
12 Giorgio Mondini MF1-Toyota 1:28.444
The action took on a new urgency for the second session, with Giorgio Mondini straight out on track. For 30 minutes he was the only MF1 driver out there posting times in the low 1.27s.
The last half of the session saw all three drivers out regularly with Tiago and Christijan rapidly improving their times lap on lap. Fortunately there were no dramas for the team, and Christijan put in a blinder of a lap right at the last minute; a 1.24.985 only 2.354 off the pace. If you remove the third driver times from the final timesheet, Christijan actually finished the session 9th which is tremendously encouraging.
Full timesheet from the second free practice session for the Italian Grand Prix:
1 Sebastian Vettel Sauber-BMW 1:22.631
2 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:23.138
3 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:23.182
4 Alexander Wurz Williams-Cosworth 1:23.414
5 Pedro de la Rosa McLaren-Mercedes 1:23.970
6 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes 1:24.034
7 Nick Heidfeld Sauber-BMW 1:24.330
8 Fernando Alonso Renault 1:24.577
9 Robert Kubica Sauber-BMW 1:24.813
10 Franck Montagny Super Aguri-Honda 1:24.943
11 Christijan Albers MF1-Toyota 1:24.985
12 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:25.027
13 Nico Rosberg Williams-Cosworth 1:25.040
14 Christian Klien RBR-Ferrari 1:25.108
15 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1:25.160
16 Tiago Monteiro MF1-Toyota 1:25.277
17 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:25.316
18 David Coulthard RBR-Ferrari 1:25.318
19 Anthony Davidson Honda 1:25.356
20 Mark Webber Williams-Cosworth 1:25.500
21 Giorgio Mondini MF1-Toyota 1:25.586
22 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Cosworth 1:25.707
23 Scott Speed STR-Cosworth 1:25.755
24 Neel Jani STR-Cosworth 1:25.878
25 Robert Doornbos RBR-Ferrari 1:26.058
26 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:26.118
27 Sakon Yamamoto Super Aguri-Honda 1:26.705
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