Vergne leads Monza practice

The final nine minutes of the 45-minute session were lost because of a fire on the circuit that brought out the red flags. The fire was understood to have been started by a cigarette and no cars were involved. The incident denied several of Vergne's rivals an opportunity to challenge his 1m38.159s time, which was set just after the half-hour mark.

ISR's Nathanael Berthon finished second fastest, 0.250s adrift, while Brendon Hartley was third for Gravity-Charouz.

Today's practice sessions are 30 minutes shorter than those enjoyed by Formula Renault 3.5 on the World Series by Renault package, as the championship is running with the World Touring Car Championship and Auto GP for the first time.

But the teams have recent experience of the track from pre-season testing to help come to grips with this weekend's relaxed aero rules. The previously compulsory application of a low aero configuration for Saturday's race one has been dropped for this meeting.

"For us, it doesn't make much difference that they have allowed a choice of aero set-ups," said Carlin's Vergne. "We're running lower than low [downforce] here anyway. The car feels pretty good, although we need to keep working. I think we had a good direction from the test."

Aragon winner Alexander Rossi was fourth for Fortec. Rossi's team-mate Cesar Ramos was last after being wrong-footed by the stoppage.

"It was unfortunate with the timing for Cesar," said Fortec team manager Jamie Dye, "but I'm sure he'll be up there in the afternoon. We're very happy with Alexander's time on used tyres from Spa. He matched the leaders in two of the sectors, and I am pretty certain next door [Carlin] took [new] tyres."

Aragon race two winner Kevin Korjus was fifth, ahead of Pons Racing's Filip Salaquarda and Oliver Webb.

Czech Salaquarda is contesting his first race of 2011 with Pons, but participated in the March test with his family ISR team, with which he contested the 2010 championship.

Pos  Driver               Team             Time       Gap
 1.  Jean Eric Vergne     Carlin           1m38.159s
 2.  Nathanael Berthon    ISR              1m38.409s  + 0.250s
 3.  Brendon Hartley      Gravity-Charouz  1m38.428s  + 0.269s
 4.  Alexander Rossi      Fortec           1m38.451s  + 0.292s
 5.  Kevin Korjus         Tech 1           1m38.708s  + 0.549s
 6.  Filip Salaquarda     Pons             1m38.747s  + 0.588s
 7.  Oliver Webb          Pons             1m38.772s  + 0.613s
 8.  Arthur Pic           Tech 1           1m38.855s  + 0.696s
 9.  Robert Wickens       Carlin           1m38.884s  + 0.725s
10.  Daniil Move          P1               1m38.929s  + 0.770s
11.  Stephane Richelmi    Draco            1m39.056s  + 0.897s
12.  Albert Costa         Epic             1m39.130s  + 0.971s
13.  Chris van der Drift  Mofaz            1m39.179s  + 1.020s
14.  Walter Grubmuller    P1               1m39.199s  + 1.040s
15.  Anton Nebylitskiy    KMP              1m39.251s  + 1.092s
16.  Daniel Ricciardo     ISR              1m39.307s  + 1.148s
17.  Jake Rosenzweig      Mofaz            1m39.332s  + 1.173s
18.  Jan Charouz          Gravity-Charouz  1m39.374s  + 1.215s
19.  Sergio Canamasas     BVM Target       1m39.529s  + 1.370s
20.  Nelson Panciatici    KMP              1m39.697s  + 1.538s
21.  Andre Negrao         Draco            1m39.708s  + 1.549s
22.  Daniel Zampieri      BVM Target       1m39.711s  + 1.552s
23.  Daniel de Jong       Comtec           1m39.990s  + 1.831s
24.  Sten Pentus          Epic             1m40.010s  + 1.851s
25.  Daniel McKenzie      Comtec           1m40.078s  + 1.919s
26.  Cesar Ramos          Fortec           1m41.766s  + 3.607s