Monza, 7th September 2007

First and second places for Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa respectively in the morning session today and then in the afternoon, sixth place for the Brazilian and eighth for the Finn. Why the sudden loss of form for the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro duo? Two reasons: while the morning had gone well for both men at the wheel of their F2007 cars, Raikkonen's afternoon session was disrupted by an hydraulic problem which meant he spent much of the time in the garage, completing just 12 laps in the afternoon, compared to Felipe's 27. Kimi was a bit frustrated at the lack of track time, but having done a couple of days testing here last week, it is not such a big handicap. As for Felipe, the team opted to run him predominantly in race trim in the afternoon, which means doing longer runs on a heavier fuel load, hence the slower lap times.

At the end of the day, the McLaren-Mercedes duo of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton were quickest in that order. It seems that being an Italian driver at Monza can be a performance booster. Yesterday, in the FIA press conference, Giancarlo Fisichella said he felt he could have a good race here and the Renault driver has started well, setting the third fastest time. In fourth place is the BMW-Sauber of Poland's Robert Kubica, followed by the Williams-Toyota of Nico Rosberg, 0.099 seconds quicker than Massa. The weather is much better than it was at last week's test and warm sunny conditions are predicted to last for the rest of the weekend.