Although he started the morning with a few problems on his MP4-24 – his fuel flap fell during his first outing on the Monza track – Hamilton quickly set the pace in the early stages of the session. Through the duration of P1, he only went out to further improve his times, eventually stopping the clock at 1:23.936. He was the only driver breaking the one minute and 24 seconds mark on Friday morning.
Under pressure to deliver some good results for McLaren in order to secure his stay at Woking beyond 2009, Heikki Kovalainen took second place in the end, some 0.4 seconds behind his teammate. The last place on the podium was Force India's Adrian Sutil, whose non-KERS-powered VJM02 came 0.535 seconds off pace.
Fourth overall was Fernando Alonso, who finally got the best of his R29's KERS unit and finished the session only 0.006 seconds behind Sutil. The Top 6 was completed by BMW's Nick Heidfeld – the Swiss team seems to have really upped their game lately – and Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi.
As expected, the championship “big guns” and title contenders Brawns and Red Bulls were nowhere to be seen up in the front, with Jenson Button being the highest ranked frontrunner of them all, in 7th place. Teammate Rubens Barrichello had to settle with the 12th fastest time, while Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel went on to finish 9th and 18th respectively.
Ferrari's newly-signed Giancarlo Fisichella outscored teammate Kimi Raikkonen on the timing sheets of Friday morning, recording the 8th fastest time – as compared to the Finn's 10th overall. However, while all the other drivers remained on hard tires for the entire morning, Fisichella did his time while on soft tires. Until that switch, in the late stages of P1, he was the last in the field.
Here are the overall results of P1 on Friday:
01. Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes) 1:23.936
02. Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren-Mercedes) 1:24.332
03. Adrian Sutil Force (India-Mercedes) 1:24.471
04. Fernando Alonso (Renault) 1:24.477
05. Nick Heidfeld (BMW-Sauber) 1:24.683
06. Sebastien Buemi (Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 1:24.703
07. Jenson Button (Brawn-Mercedes) 1:24.706
08. Giancarlo Fisichella (Ferrari) 1:24.732
09. Mark Webber (Red Bull-Renault) 1:24.759
10. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 1:24.761
11. Robert Kubica (BMW-Sauber) 1:24.813
12. Rubens Barrichello (Brawn-Mercedes) 1:24.826
13. Nico Rosberg (Williams-Toyota) 1:24.927
14. Kazuki Nakajima (Williams-Toyota) 1:25.150
15. Romain Grosjean (Renault) 1:25.612
16. Vitantonio Liuzzi (Force India-Mercedes) 1:25.689
17. Jaime Alguersuari (Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 1:25.742
18. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull-Renault) 1:25.951
19. Jarno Trulli (Toyota) 1:26.020
20. Timo Glock (Toyota) 1:26.325
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