Lewis Hamilton underlined his intention to deliver a positive result in Monza as he set the fastest pace in first practice for the Italian Grand Prix.
His McLaren was 0.921 seconds faster than team-mate Jenson Button with Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel in third.
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was almost three seconds adrift in seventh with team-mate Felipe Massa eighth.
Michael Schumacher, a five-time winner in Italy, went off at Parabolica but finished 11th for Mercedes.
Hamilton arrived in Italy determined to deflect any lingering criticism from an eventful Belgium Grand Prix.
The 2008 world champion was reprimanded for a collision during qualifying with Williams driver Pastor Maldonado and then crashed out of the race after he collided with Kamui Kobayashi's Sauber in an early battle for fourth.
There was more encouragement for McLaren as Button was Hamilton's closest rival, although the 2009 champion complained of "masssive oversteer" during the session.Hamilton summed up 2011 as his "worst" season so far but said he was determined to turn things around in Monza and an incident-free practice session saw him lead the field by almost a second.
Vettel was 1.366 seconds slower than Hamilton's benchmark, with team-mate Mark Webber 0.228secs behind the German.
The world championship leader, who produced a shock win here for Toro Rosso three years ago, conceded his current employers Red Bull had struggled at Monza in the past.
Neither Vettel nor Webber have been on the podium here for Red Bull and Vettel insisted the champion team are not favourites this weekend.
Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo arrived at the historic circuit to see Alonso finish the session 2.782secs off the pace and more than a second shy Webber's fourth-placed Red Bull.
"It looks like there is a lot of work to do to try and be competitive with McLaren and Red Bull," the team said on their Twitter page.
The team's enthusiastic 'tifosi' supporters will not be giving up hope of a home win just yet.
The opening session on track represents the first opportunity for the drivers to find the balance of the cars that have been prepared specifically with Monza in mind.
The low-downforce, high-speed circuit - which has four straights and just one fast corner at Parabolica - sees the teams run the smallest wings of the year and the main protagonists spent the session assessing various aerodynamic solutions
BBC F1 pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz explained: "McLaren intend to run more rear downforce while Red Bull appear to have a tiny rear wing.
Mercedes, who are tipped to be strong this weekend because of their prodigious straight-line speed, also opted unusually to run on high fuel in an attempt to improve their competitiveness over the race distance.
"Ferrari are trying out a shallower angle and are running different front wings on each car while Mercedes also have a tweak to the back of their car."
Schumacher was nearly three seconds behind Hamilton, with Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg 18th.
Heikki Kovalainen retired his Lotus with gearbox problems while Jerome d'Ambrosio also failed to complete the session for Virgin Racing because of suspected engine issues.
No comments:
Post a Comment