Button Fastest in Practice 1 at Monza

McLaren continued their dominant pace from Spa with a good performance in the first practice session of the Italian Grand Prix, at Monza, as Jenson Button topped the field in the 90-minute morning session with the best time of 1:23.693. The reigning world champion was followed by Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel less than one tenth of a second behind, while followed by the other McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton. Both British drivers used a larger rear wing on their MP4-25s during P1, a move that McLaren hopes to trigger higher-than-normal downforce in the corners and improved speed in straight line in conjunction with the F-duct system.

The first session did not say much about the true pace of the front-runners, as more than 40 minutes were used by all the drivers to figure out the best set up for the Monza track. The benchmark was set several times by Hamilton and Vettel, before Button stopped the clock a little under 1:23.7.

The 4th best time of the morning action belonged to Renault's Robert Kubica, while followed by Mercedes' Nico Rosberg and Red Bull's Mark Webber. Both the Australian and his teammate Vettel used high-visibility paint on their RB5s in the first part of the session to test the car's downforce efficiency at Monza.

Both Ferrari drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa focused on long runs on the hard compound on Friday morning, settling for the 8th and 9th best times of the day respectively, behind impressive Force India driver Vitantonio Liuzzi. These 9 drivers were the only ones to finish the session within one second from Button, while Michael Schumacher completed the Top 10.

An important piece of information regarding the practice this morning involves Scuderia Toro Rosso, the last team to develop the F-duct system on their STR6. Although constantly denying work on such a device from the very first stages of 2010, the Italian squad finally got to finalize their development and introduced the aerodynamic part on the car this morning.

The few incidents of the first 90 minutes of action on the Monza track involved Bruno Senna stopping his car on the circuit after previously tackling a brake fluids leak on his HRT F1 car, as well as Rubens Barrichello parking his FW32 outside the track after losing control of it exiting the second Lesmo.