The first day of the Italian Grand Prix saw Ferrari and McLaren dominate proceedings, but several other outfits seem to be in the game this weekend - at least over a single flying lap. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo reports from the Autodromo Nazionale Monza.

McLaren

“A shorter day for me, with just the one session, but everything felt good, and I felt like I hit the ground running. Thanks to Alex for his support in FP1. We’ve got a few tweaks to make here and there to try and make sure we go into Qualifying as strong as possible, but I felt good on the second Soft run so I am feeling confident. I am looking forward to tomorrow.”

“At the moment it’s a little bit close for my liking, but we’re not in a bad spot. We’ve still got a few things to improve, but it’s good we’re still at the top of the timings despite that. It was good that we improved performance throughout the session, but the competition are still close to us. We’ll work hard overnight and see what we can do to try and take another step as we head into FP3 and Quali.”

Ferrari

Charles Leclerc - FP1: 1:20.286, P2; FP2: 1:19.961, P2
"Our car was not the most consistent in low and high fuel runs today, but it was fast, which is better than the other way around. We have some work to do on our short runs to extract the best tomorrow, and to work on our consistency.

"I think it’s going to be a very tight qualifying as was the case last year at this track, for now, things have gone quite well and I think we will have the chance to put up a good fight tomorrow."

Lewis Hamilton - FP1: 1:20.117, P1; FP2: 1:20.070, P5

"It’s very special to be out on track in front of the tifosi, the passion and energy here in Monza is truly unique. The car felt pretty good earlier this afternoon and it was encouraging to finish FP1 on top. We made some changes between sessions that we’ll review carefully, as we’re not sure they took us in the right direction, but we have time to adjust ahead of tomorrow.

"Our pace over a lap looked strong and we’ve collected valuable information across the tyre compounds so the priority will be to see how we can keep improving race pace. I'm confident the team can make good progress overnight and we’ll be working towards a good qualifying tomorrow."

Williams

Alex Albon - FP1: 1:21.073, P7; FP2: 1:20.179, P7
"Honestly, it's been quite a tricky day with our big run plan, but we did get through everything. The cars are quick, and we had reasonable race pace today, so we're in a good place; we just need to make sure that we carry that through to tomorrow. I think we have sweet spots and we've seen that time and time again this year.

"Our outlaps and getting the tyres working in the window is going to be tricky, so we just need to make sure we can execute what we want to do. I think this weekend we have the ability to score some good points. We've traditionally been on top of the midfield here and I think we can do that again."

Carlos Sainz - FP1: 1:20.650, P3; FP2: 1:19.974, P3

"Today has been a positive day and we seem to have good pace. There are still a few areas which I’d like to finetune, so I can feel a bit more comfortable throughout a few of the corners, but it’s good to have decent pace across both long and short runs. We’ll do some work on the setup tonight and hopefully we can carry this good form the rest of the weekend."

Red Bull

Max Verstappen - FP1: 1:20.692, P4; FP2: 1:20.077, P6
“Today has been quite decent. Last year for us this was a very difficult weekend and we’ve seemed a lot more competitive today which has been good. I am happier with the car as well. The sessions have been quite tricky, especially with a few people going off and putting gravel on the track.

"I think they might move the gravel in Qualifying but it would be tricky in the race as it is not easy as to keep it under control. It’s been quite a decent Friday for us: there is work to do but it is better.”

"Overall I think that today was a bit up and down but it was pretty positive on the whole and the pace was really, really good. We had a bit of flex and if you have that you have to find out why, we also picked up so much gravel and we didn’t expect that and weren’t sure exactly why.

"Considering that we were also in and out of traffic we actually ended up with a pretty good lap. Our continuity going into the soft line wasn’t there, I thought for the long run we may have had the pace but we were lacking and we have to balance ourselves between the short run and the long run."

Mercedes

"It was a tricky day here in Monza. We come to what is a low downforce circuit fresh from running at Zandvoort where we are running higher downforce. The car therefore feels quite different and not quite as planted as it did the week before, particularly at the rear. Whilst it therefore didn’t feel spectacular today, the pace wasn’t too bad. The field is tight; I finished P10 in FP2 but still only just under four tenths shy of P1.

"We will look to make some improvements overnight as I suspect that it will prove to be just as competitive over the rest of the weekend. I struggled for a little bit of confidence and had a few moments, particularly at Turn 7 like Kimi. There’s definitely lap time to be found therefore and if we can unlock that, then we can be confident of having a good weekend."

"I pushed a little bit too hard on my second lap in FP2 for the grip conditions and that put me in the gravel. I kept the car running but was unfortunately beached. It was a shame as I’d had a positive FP1 and my first lap on the Hard tyre was strong. It is a setback, but my confidence is still high.

"I felt confident in the car, and we were moving in the right direction with the set-up. We will adjust our FP3 programme a little to compensate for the lost track time, but we can still look forward to the weekend.

"It certainly looks very close out there. Just under four tenths covered the top 10 in FP2 so small improvements will make a big difference. I am excited to get back out there tomorrow and try to secure a good starting position that sets us up well for Sunday. Let’s see what we can do."

Racing Bulls

“We knew before coming to Monza that the midfield here would have been very tight. My feeling was right, it’s going to be hard for us to catch up to Williams but not impossible. We’re lacking speed at the moment, but I think that we can have a good shot at fighting to reach another Q3. We know it’s difficult, but obviously that’s our hope, so that then we can try to get some points on Sunday.”

“Today’s sessions were tough and with very small margins, but we were pushing to extract every bit of performance from the car. We missed a little today, but we’ll learn from it and will be in a better position for tomorrow. We made setup changes between FP1 and FP2, expecting certain improvements, but it didn’t go as planned. We’ll work on getting on top of things and optimising the car for Qualifying. There’s still work to be done, but hopefully we can fight for a spot in Q3."

Aston Martin

Fernando Alonso - FP1: 1:21.114, P9; FP2: 1:20.645, P15
"It was an okay Friday for us with a lot of grip on this asphalt and these temperatures. We did a mixture of high fuel and low fuel running today and I didn't feel that competitive, so we need to try to find more pace overnight."

Lance Stroll - FP1: 1:21.295, P15; FP2: 1:20.528, P13
"Good memories racing in Monza and I always enjoy coming back here – the track, the fans and the energy are really special. We've got some good running in today so we now need to look at the data and see what we can do overnight.

"We came here with realistic expectations, the car has its strengths and weaknesses and this is a track where we’re expecting a more challenging weekend than our most recent performance in Zandvoort and Budapest."

Kick Sauber

Nico Hulkenberg - FP1: 1:21.179, P12; FP2: 1:20.241, P8
“It was a straightforward Friday for us, with no issues. We focused on running through our programme, gathering data on the car, the package, and the tyres. We made some good progress from FP1 to FP2 today, and the aim now is to keep building on that over the weekend.”

“Driving in Monza is always special, and I’m quite happy with the work we did today. Overall, it was a positive, productive day: we got good laps in, worked on understanding the car balance, and did some fine-tuning here and there. Tomorrow we’ll keep pushing with another practice session before we head into qualifying. Big thanks to the whole team for today’s work – we keep moving forward.”

Haas

“It’s interesting to get back to Monza, it’s a very special circuit with a lot of unique characteristics. I think we improved the car from FP1 to FP2, but we need a little bit more tomorrow as we’re not where we want to be in terms of pace, but it’s close out there. We improved the balance and how the car felt, we know the direction we need to go, and it’s up to us now to make the difference.”

“It was a good day overall, and we improved a lot from FP1 to FP2. In FP1 I personally struggled a lot with the car, especially in the low-speed corners, which is obviously quite important on a track like this. In FP2 we made a big step in car feeling and confidence levels, so that was positive, and we’ll try to make a few more steps before the race.

"I was struggling a little bit in Parabolica with car balance, the wind wasn’t in our favour, so that was the biggest time loss. It looks like we’re lacking on the straights and I’m not sure what we can do about that, but we’ll work overnight to see how we can improve.”

Alpine

“It is always good to be driving in Monza and it is obviously a place with special memories and meaning for me, especially since I live nearby in Milan and stay at home for the race weekend! Driving down the main straight here is a special feeling and the high top speed is always amazing to experience. It was a busy day of Practice, which ran to plan.

"We completed a lot of laps, well over 300km in total across the day, and gathered a lot of useful data on both low and high fuel. We knew going into the weekend it would be challenging for us.

"We had minor damage after running wide at Ascari in Free Practice 2 but nothing too bad. We will, of course, aim to maximise what we have and see what we can do tomorrow. I'll give it my all to try and find some lap time and see where that leaves us in Qualifying.”

“A slightly different Friday for me today with Paul driving in Free Practice 1. It was good to be back in the car for the second session and on track again at Monza. It is a circuit I know well from my junior racing days and my Formula 1 debut last year.

"For us, today has been tough but it was probably to be expected here. We have some work to do and I am sure we will work hard together to find some improvements. The car was tricky to drive and we just need to see if we can adapt to some of these limitations.

"We have Qualifying tomorrow, so we will see what we can do in Free Practice 3 and make the necessary changes to the car.”