UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > Heavy rain halts practice

Monza downpour

A largely inconclusive first practice session at Monza was run in worsening rain, and notable mainly for the – very topical – number of times drivers had to cut chicanes, without being in close contest with other cars. If Sunday sees similar weather, the stewards will be very busy indeed.

Force India made the decision to send their cars out early, hence Adrian Sutil stands at the top of the times having set his best before the rain fell harder. His 1;32.842 is representative of very little, other than it was nearly a second quicker than his teammate Giancarlo Fisichella managed in similar conditions.

Between these two, with a similarly early session time, came Rubens Barrichello in the Honda, with Timo Glock and Nico Rosberg next in line and, indicative of how the weather turned, some four seconds slower than Sutil.

Ferrari sent their drivers out for a few laps, coming in ninth for Raikkonen and somewhere equally irrelevant for Massa – but McLaren, and BMW, opted not to bother gracing the Italian fans with their presence.

By the time they may have opted to emerge that rain had become almost torrential, and the session was red flagged with a few minutes left, as conditions were considered too treacherous to drive.

Nothing much to draw form this 90 minutes, then, other than that we are looking at another weekend of less than beautiful weather.

Written: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:31:34