Huff heads Tarquini and Muller in the opening practice session at Monza

The Briton was in control at the top of the timing screens for the majority of the half-hour session. Huff's quickest lap of 1m58.679s was a clear 0.241s up on SEAT star Gabriele Tarquini in his Lukoil Racing Leon.

As expected from their formidable pace in Thursday's test, Huff's RML Chevrolet team-mates were also at the fore. Reigning world champion Yvan Muller took third, just 0.001s clear of Swiss Alain Menu.

Norbert Michelisz's Zengo Motorsport BMW did a respectable job in fifth. The Hungarian staged a competitive showing at Monza in 2011, and while not carried away with his performance this morning, he was encouraged that there was more performance to come from his BMW 320 TC.

"It is difficult to read too much into the performance from free practice one, but the good thing is we do not have the optimum set-up yet," said Michelisz.

"We have been experimenting on Thursday, and the idea was not to find the ideal set-up for Monza, but just to collect data. Thursday was also the first time since Macau that I drove the car."

The session was red-flagged to allow marshals to attend to oil laid around the last two sectors. SUNRED SEAT runner Pepe Oriola had a wild trip across the grass at the Ascari chicane, while Arena Ford's WTCC debutant Tom Chilton had an even hairier moment at the same spot, and did well to keep his Focus away from the wall.

"The oil was bad in the Lesmos, as well as at Ascari," explained Chilton of his half spin. "When I lost it on the oil I flat spotted my tyres, so unfortunately I am stuck with them now for the whole two sessions."

The order of the top six at the time of the stoppage was Huff, Tarquini, Muller, Menu, Michelisz and Oriola. The session was restarted with six minutes remaining, although few drivers would improve on their times.

Exceptions were Swedish Chevrolet veteran Rickard Rydell and SUNRED's Tiago Monteiro, who jousted for sixth. Rydell eventually emerged ahead.

Chilton's Arena team-mate James Nash also moved up the order to eighth, before being bumped to a solid tenth at the session's end.

The restart proved relatively incident free, although Muller had a minor moment running down the escape road at the first chicane, and Darryl O'Young spun his Special Tuning SEAT at the second chicane.

Free Practice 1 - Results:

Pos  Driver               Team/Car          Time       Gap
 1.  Rob Huff             Chevrolet         1m58.679s
 2.  Gabriele Tarquini    SUNRED SEAT       1m58.920s  + 0.241s
 3.  Yvan Muller          Chevrolet         1m59.228s  + 0.549s
 4.  Alain Menu           Chevrolet         1m59.229s  + 0.550s
 5.  Norbert Michelisz    Zengo BMW         1m59.565s  + 0.886s
 6.  Tiago Monteiro       SUNRED SEAT       1m59.693s  + 1.014s
 7.  Rickard Rydell       Chevrolet Sweden  1m59.795s  + 1.116s
 8.  Pepe Oriola          SUNRED SEAT       1m59.866s  + 1.187s
 9.  Franz Engstler       Engstler BMW      2m00.065s  + 1.386s
10.  James Nash           Arena Ford        2m00.195s  + 1.516s
11.  Alex MacDowall       Bamboo Chevrolet  2m00.403s  + 1.724s
12.  Tom Coronel          ROAL BMW          2m00.432s  + 1.753s
13.  Gabor Weber          Zengo BMW         2m00.495s  + 1.816s
14.  Stefano D'Aste       Wiechers BMW      2m00.541s  + 1.862s
15.  Alberto Cerqui       ROAL BMW          2m00.803s    2.124s
16.  Darryl O'Young       Bamboo Chevrolet  2m00.878s  + 2.199s
17.  Andrea Barlesi       SUNRED SEAT       2m00.952s  + 2.273s
18.  Tom Chilton          Arena Ford        2m01.062s    2.383s
19.  Mehdi Bennani        Proteam BMW       2m01.065s  + 2.386s
20.  Charles Ng           Engstler BMW      2m01.100s  + 2.421s
21.  Aleksei Dudukalo     SUNRED SEAT       2m01.410s  + 2.731s
22.  Pasquale Di Sabatino Bamboo Chevrolet  2m02.052s  + 3.373s
23.  Isaac Tutumlu        Proteam BMW       2m02.358s  + 3.679s