Sutil puts Force India on top in free practice

German Adrian Sutil topped the times for Force India in yesterday's second free practice session for tomorrow's Italian Grand Prix.

The 26-year-old driver from Starnberg clocked a best time of one minute and 23.924 seconds to outpace nearest rival Frenchman Romain Grosjean, of Renault, by two-tenths of a second, confirming the team's strong recent form.

Two-times champion Spaniard Fernando Alonso was third fastest in the other Renault on a day when the French team were at the centre of a major controversy over events at last year's Singapore Grand Prix.

The scandal, unfortunately, overshadowed nearly all of the on-track action in which the usual suspects in this year's championship battle kept a low profile.

Defending drivers world champion Briton Lewis Hamilton, who was fastest in the morning for McLaren Mercedes, was down in 11th but was at least assured by seeing his team-mate Heikki Kovalainen clock fourth best time behind Alonso.

Championship leader Jenson Button was 19th for Brawn GP, sandwiched between 18th placed rival German Sebastian Vettel, of Red Bull, and Italian veteran Giancarlo Fisichella, newly-installed at Ferrari, who was 20th.

Fisichella, who put Force India on pole at the Belgian Grand Prix and finished second for the team's first points, had a mixed debut with the Maranello team he has always longed to drive for.

The experienced Roman was eighth quickest in the first free practice, two places ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, although he had switched to the softer and quicker tyres for the late run that produced the best time.

Before then, he had been among the last on the timing screens and he returned to the bottom of the list in the afternoon session.

Meanwhile, Button's Brawn team-mate Brazilian Rubens Barrichello was 16th quickest, two places behind another title contender Red Bull's Australian Mark Webber.

These places confirmed that few of the leading men in the field were clocking lap times that were of much significance when it came to assessing what may happen in today's qualifying session.

On another hot and dry day, with spells of sustained late-summer sunshine, the track temperature reached 38 degrees Celsius and the air temperature 28 degrees, high enough to give the Brawn team little excuse for extracting a good performance from their cars and tyres.