Sauber struggles for grip

The Sauber-Petronas team struggled to find the same levels of grip from its Bridgestone tyres as today's pace-setters Ferrari in free practice for the San Marino Grand Prix, despite the Swiss team sharing the V10 power unit as the world champions

Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella both suffered with a general lack of grip, and could manage no better than 15th and 17th overall at Imola.

Sauber has brought a new aerodynamic package for the C23 for this grand prix, but clearly still has other aspects to focus on before tomorrow's qualifying sessions. Fisichella also complained about the balance of the car, saying work still needed to be done to improve the set-up.

"The car is very good in long runs, but it's still very difficult on the first lap out of the pits on new tyres," the Italian said. "The balance isn't bad, although we still need to do some work on that, but both ends just lack grip until the tyres reach their operating temperature after a lap."

Team-mate Massa reckoned his car performed well, but agreed more work was needed: "On the long runs today it felt great and was consistent, but we need to work on exploiting new tyres better. The car is still very tricky to drive for the first lap on them."