The fight was extremely closely matched not only at the sharp end of the field, but the teams of the midfield pack were also separated by the tiniest of margins. F1Technical’s lad journalist Balazs Szabo delivers what they had to say after the opening day at the Italian Grand Prix.

Aston Martin

Fernando Alonso

"Every circuit has its own character, and racing in Monza always feels special. The track was smoother and less bumpy than last year due to the new tarmac. A lot of data has been gathered in the two sessions, so we will now analyse it and review it corner by corner to try to maximise the potential on track for the car tomorrow."

Lance Stroll

"It's good to get back out on this track – it's a great circuit and I love being in Italy. We made a few changes to the car following FP1 and it felt better in FP2; I think we're moving in the right direction but there's still some work to do overnight. The resurfaced track had more grip and was less bumpy, so it was definitely kinder on the body!"

Visa Cash RB

Daniel Ricciardo

"It was a good day and the car felt strong. Monza’s a cool track, some circuits you enjoy more than others and this is one. It’s a bit different with the new asphalt, and as we saw with other drivers, grip can be a little hard to find. It’s challenging but fun. I’m happy with today and think we’ve built a good foundation for the weekend. There’s not much to change overnight, we understand the car and we’re in a good place. I felt a good level of comfort in the car, but there’s always something more to find."

Yuki Tsunoda

"It was a bit of a difficult day for us, and I think there are still a lot of things to understand. There have been a few changes to the track, it’s been resurfaced which felt smoother and nice to drive. Also, the curbs have changed, allowing us to drive slightly more aggressively. It was just the first day; the engineers will have a look through the data overnight and hopefully, we’ll find some room to improve ahead of tomorrow."

Kick Sauber

Valtteri Bottas

“It’s always nice to be back racing in Monza, and to do so with a pretty straightforward, productive day. We went through our programme as expected, and this allowed us to work on finetuning our car between the two sessions.

“We definitely seem to be in a better place on this track compared to Zandvoort, and the feeling is that Monza suits our car better – it was nice for all the team to have a positive day after last weekend.

“We won’t get carried away, it’s still Friday, and it’s just Free Practice: we need to make some more improvements ahead of tomorrow. We expect everyone will make a step overnight, and we’ll need to make one too; if we achieve that, we’ll at least be able to get in the mix.”

Zhou Guanyu

“It’s always a pleasure to return to such an iconic track and to take stock of the work that has been made on the circuit: clearly, a lot of effort has gone into smoothing out bumps and resurfacing the circuit, which made the early laps important to get new reference points.

“FP1 went well, but FP2 was a bit more difficult. We’ll look into it with the team tonight and try to be prepared for tomorrow. I believe there’s quite an opportunity to optimise the setup and extract more performance; and the performance of Valtteri, who has some upgrades on his car, is also promising. The team will put in a lot of work tonight to analyse the data and be ready for qualifying.”

Haas

Nico Hulkenberg

"It’s been a good Friday. It’s still the Monza that we know despite the new curbs. Of course, it’s a bit different in the detail here and there but I think the old DNA of the track is still there and coming through.

“I had a good feeling with the car straightaway this morning and had some decent running in FP2, especially in the heat. I think tires are going to be a big subject on Sunday during the race in terms of management and graining, but at the moment I feel good.

“Tonight, we’ll try to further optimize the most competitive package on the road. In the midfield, we’re fighting a lot of teams and there are very fine margins, so in qualifying execution is going to be key and it will be important to stay clean."

Kevin Magnussen

"I lost it on entry into the corner carrying too much speed and had a moment on the rear. It was a pretty snappy moment, I wasn’t quick enough to catch it and spun off into the wall.

“Luckily, there isn’t a lot of damage to the car; we have to change the front wing, but we’ll go again. It’s not what you want to do, I missed out on my long run which always has useful data but we’ll make it work.

“Often with new tarmac there’s high grip but it's very peaky grip – so when you have a moment – it’s going to be big and you have to be quick to react and catch it. We have a positive feeling with the car and with outright pace, but it’s so tight that it could turnaround so you have to be very clean and just nail it."

Williams

Alex Albon

"Today felt mostly strong except for our Soft tyre run in FP2, but other than that, everything else was pretty good. We’re in a decent place but it’s close out there and we definitely have some work to do. I think tomorrow will be a trade between Qualifying and race pace; there’s a lot of graining going on right now and it’s hurting the tyres a lot. In terms of getting the one lap performance and also the long run performance is a bit of a challenge, so let’s see what sweet spot we can find."

Franco Colapinto

"I’m very proud to have completed my first Friday as a Formula 1 driver. There are things to work on with the team but overall, it was a good first day. Instead of going for lap times, I focused on myself by building up everything throughout the sessions.

“I was careful in FP1 as I wanted to put the laps in. On the long runs, I’m still trying to understand how to keep the tyre alive for longer and find that sweet spot.

“I felt a lot more comfortable in FP2 as I was trying to find the limit and was more consistent which was a good step for my confidence. I’m super grateful to everyone in the team for helping me get up to speed this weekend."

Alpine

Esteban Ocon

"It’s always exciting to come to Monza, one of the highlights of the whole season. We haven’t had the best start to the weekend so far and just simply didn’t have the pace today, so we will have to work hard overnight to find improvements.

“We are trying lots of different things at the moment to find more performance but still seem to be struggling quite a bit. We got some good running today and have gathered useful data, so we will keep digging hard overnight. The whole team is putting the work in, in order for us to find more performance. But this might be another tough weekend for us at this track.

“We continue to push and with the track changes, hopefully there will be some opportunities tomorrow. We need to make sure we come prepared for any opportunities."

Pierre Gasly

"This morning was tough and this afternoon, with the set-up work, it was looking better on the Medium tyres. However, we didn’t get to do a lap on the Soft tyres with a red flag and some traffic. I didn’t manage to do a representative lap on the softer compound, so I think that there is more to come tomorrow.

“As we expected on this track, we have no other choice than to be perfect for a chance to get into Q2 in Qualifying tomorrow and challenge the cars in front of us. There have been a few changes to the track and, on my side, it was just a matter of getting used to them but driving-wise it is very similar.

“The tarmac we will have to keep an eye on Sunday for degradation, I think that this is the biggest change to before. Tomorrow will be challenging but I’m confident that we can improve the car and find some more performance. The field is extremely tight, and we will have to be perfect tomorrow."