Monza, 11 September 2009

The repercussions from Felipe Massa’s accident in Budapest continue to be felt at Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, as this weekend sees another Italian making his driving debut with the Prancing Horse. For Giancarlo Fisichella, the start of this morning’s free practice was the moment he had been waiting for ever since he came second in the Belgian Grand Prix a fortnight ago, when he got the call and possibly, ever since he was a little boy! The Roman pushed hard throughout the three hours, getting to grips with remembering where all the buttons and controls are on the steering wheel and dealing with the power boost of the KERS for the first time, as his previous team had never used the system. He also admitted it was taking time to adapt to cutting the kerbs, but this factor probably applies to the other drivers too, as the Monza circuit has modified them since last year, in an attempt to stop drivers cutting across them at the corners and chicanes.
Giancarlo was eighth fastest in the morning, then twentieth in the afternoon, but the times mean even less than usual on a Friday, here, as the high speed nature of the track produces very close times. In fact the first fourteen this afternoon, including Kimi Raikkonen in eighth spot, are all within a second of one another. Giancarlo was approximately a further 6 tenths off the fastest time, which was set by the man who has been his team-mate up until this weekend, Adrian Sutil, driving the Force India.

Relative newcomer, Romain Grosjean was second quickest, ahead of his Renault team-mate, Fernando Alonso. Fourth spot went to the McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen, with Robert Kubica fifth for BMW and Timo Glock sixth for Toyota.

Fisichella’s move to Ferrari means there is another new face in the pack, as Vitantonio Liuzzi, a former Toro Rosso driver, makes his F1 return with Force India.