Van der Garde tops first practice

The Barwa driver set his best time of 1m30.654s midway through the session and managed to retain his place at the top of the timing sheets until the chequered flag, finishing 0.175s clear of Addax's Sergio Perez. Luca Filippi was third-quickest for Super Nova ahead of ART's Sam Bird.

Runaway series leader Pastor Maldonado's hopes of securing the championship in Italy got off to a ragged start when he was stripped of his best time for cutting the Turn 1 chicane. That left him languishing in 21st until the final moments of the session, when he managed to haul himself up to seventh.

Two drivers are making their series debut this weekend and both got things off to low-key starts, with Trident's Edoardo Piscopo finishing up 22nd - the Italian managing to finish the session despite ripping his rear wing off in a clash with DPR's Michael Herck - and Coloni's Brendon Hartley 23rd.

Arden's Charles Pic was the morning's only casualty, the French driver crashing at the Parabolica on his second lap.

Pos  Driver               Team                Time       Gap
 1.  Giedo van der Garde  Barwa Addax         1m30.654s
 2.  Sergio Perez         Barwa Addax         1m30.829s  + 0.175s
 3.  Luca Filippi         Super Nova          1m31.027s  + 0.373s
 4.  Sam Bird             ART                 1m31.096s  + 0.442s
 5.  Dani Clos            Racing Engineering  1m31.156s  + 0.502s
 6.  Romain Grosjean      DAMS                1m31.244s  + 0.590s
 7.  Pastor Maldonado     Rapax               1m31.249s  + 0.595s
 8.  Alvaro Parente       Coloni              1m31.252s  + 0.598s
 9.  Oliver Turvey        iSport              1m31.255s  + 0.601s
10.  Jerome D'Ambrosio    DAMS                1m31.272s  + 0.618s
11.  Christian Vietoris   Racing Engineering  1m31.359s  + 0.705s
12.  Jules Bianchi        ART                 1m31.394s  + 0.740s
13.  Michael Herck        DPR                 1m31.466s  + 0.812s
14.  Davide Valsecchi     iSport              1m31.478s  + 0.824s
15.  Luiz Razia           Rapax               1m31.658s  + 1.004s
16.  Fabrizio Crestani    DPR                 1m31.667s  + 1.013s
17.  Marcus Ericsson      Super Nova          1m31.727s  + 1.073s
18.  Fabio Leimer         Ocean               1m31.796s  + 1.142s
19.  Max Chilton          Ocean               1m31.864s  + 1.210s
20.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Arden               1m31.911s  + 1.257s
21.  Adrian Zaugg         Trident             1m31.937s  + 1.283s
22.  Edoardo Piscopo      Trident             1m32.940s  + 2.286s
23.  Brendon Hartley      Coloni              1m33.369s  + 2.715s
24.  Charles Pic          Arden               1m41.642s  + 10.988s