Ferrari's Monza engine fears

Although Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello led the way in the first practice, they were knocked off the top spot by Kimi Raikkonen in final practice and the team believes they are in for a hard time over the rest of the weekend.

Barrichello said: "The fight for first place this weekend will be decided by thousandths of a second. From what we have seen today we seem to be competitive, but we need to work very hard and concentrate to make sure we get the most out of our package."

Initial impressions of the Bridgestone tyres appears to indicate that the softer tyre is much faster over a single lap than the harder compound, but is obviously less consistent over a race distance run.

Ferrari sporting director Jean Todt said: "In order to interpret today's results we have to take into account the different programmes undertaken by the various teams. For our part, we concentrated mainly on the race, working on set-up and comparison of the two tyres of Bridgestone tyre available. I think it will be a close fight both tomorrow and in the race - and we should be on the pace."

Newly crowned world champion Michael Schumacher, who is sporting a new helmet colour scheme featuring the Italian flag as a tribute to the tifosi, was equally upbeat.

"We hope to put on a good show for all the fans who will be here to celebrate our recent winning of both titles," he said. "The colours of the Italian flag on my helmet is a small thank you to Italian Ferrari fans for all their support in the bad times as well as the good."