“I am actually happy with the work we did today,” said Michael. “We had quite a full programme which worked out well. We did some tyre checks, we made a few set-up-changes trying to improve our performance, and we can be quite confident, even if at this stage of the weekend nobody knows too much. Compared to the test here last week, which went quite well even if all the times were quite close, Bridgestone have come up with even better tyres. They are quite consistent which is obviously very important. At the start of the practice session it was a bit wet on some spots of the track, but at the end the grip was good. We hope to offer our tifosi a good performance here in Italy, because they really deserve it.”

Rubens Barrichello had to sit out the morning session after he discovered a brake problem on his installation lap and it was not until the afternoon session that he was able to do some quick laps. And although he ended the day in second place he knows he has major room for improvement. Barrichello is not too confident for the qualifying session but he knows that the Ferrari will be competitive but is also wary of the teams rivals pulling in the gap.

“All in all, it was a good day’s work,” commented Barrichello. “I know that I had to miss almost all the morning session because of a brake problem, but we’ve already done a lot of running here last week and, in any case, in the afternoon we were still able to collect a considerable amount of data. Tomorrow we think that it’s going to be a really tight qualifying session: the tests last week showed us that the times of the leading cars are going to be very close to each other. We think that we’re going to be very competitive here.”

“It is a pleasure for us to be here in Monza for the Italian Grand Prix where our fans have given us a really warm welcome,” concluded Jean Todt. “During the course of today’s practice session we have worked mainly on comparing the two tyre compounds we have available. Bridgestone have done a fantastic job by managing to bring us a tyre based on the results of last week’s testing here in Monza. Rubens had a brake problem right at the start of the morning session, but then everything was sorted. I think that it’s going to be an exciting qualifying session tomorrow. We’ll be battling for a place on the first two rows of the grid. Let’s hope that we’ll be able to make our fans happy and also our Gestione Sportiva personnel who will be out in force on their own reserved grandstand. Finally, we would also like to congratulate the Monza management for the excellent job that they have done in renovating the circuit infrastructure.”