Italian GP: Lotus driver Jerome d'Ambrosio satisfied with first day at Monza

Reserve driver d'Ambrosio is deputising for Romain Grosjean in Italy this weekend due to the Frenchman's one-race ban for causing the dramatic Belgian Grand Prix start accident.

"It's definitely a challenge," said d'Ambrosio when asked by AUTOSPORT how he rated his Friday progress.

"I'd say 'so far, so good'. We made steady progress between FP1 and FP2.

"It's important for me to stay relaxed and do the best that I can. We all know it's not an easy one. But there's no point in focusing on that.

"I'll just stay concentrated, stay focused, stay with the engineers and try to make progress tomorrow."

D'Ambrosio was adamant it would not be helpful to set performance targets for himself this weekend.

"I had a good first day and I'm going to approach the second day in the same way," he said.

"There's no point in me starting to think 'oh I'm going to make it to Q3 or I'm going to do this or I'm going to do that'. It's the best way to lose myself.

"We know the situation, there are lots of things for me to take in and I'll focus on taking things in to be as well prepared as I can be for qualifying.

"Once that is done, we will see what the result is."

Asked if he could feel the difference between the Lotus E20 and the Virgin he raced in 2011, d'Ambrosio replied: "It's a very low downforce track, but I probably still feel as much downforce as I maybe had last year in Monaco..."