Bridgestone Friday press release - 2nd September 17:58pm GMT

The Italian Grand Prix weekend kicked off today with two, one-hour long practice sessions run in warm and sunny conditions. After testing at the 5.793km Monza circuit last week, Bridgestone Motorsport's teams have all benefited from preparing their car set ups in advance and have a feel for the tyres they have chosen for what is regarded as the fastest GP on the calendar.

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro's Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello finished the first practice session with the eighth and eleventh fastest times. The second practice session proved less beneficial, with the World Champion crashing out mid way through the session, leaving him stranded trackside. Rubens Barrichello finished the session in 16th but will be looking to improve considerably tomorrow after ironing out the imbalance in his car set up.

Jordan's Tiago Monteiro continued to relish his opportunity to run the new Jordan, finishing both sessions ahead of his teammates and the Minardi drivers. Meanwhile, Italian F1 newcomer Enrico Toccacelo had a trouble free day as Minardi's Friday test driver.

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager:
"Track conditions were reasonable today. This is probably because of the amount of testing that took place here last week. As a result, we were able to obtain some useful feedback and data about our tyre performance here. All three Bridgestone teams were able to compare their two specifications of tyre although Michael Schumacher couldn't complete his comparison as a result of his incident."

"Rubens Barrichello also struggled a little today with his car set-up but with the data we have from today combined with the data from last week, it shouldn't be a problem. We shall now check all the tyres and this evening we should be able to assist our teams in making a good tyre choice for the remainder of the weekend."

Ross Brawn, Technical Director, Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro:
"Losing Michael's car in the middle of the the second session was not an ideal start to our weekend. We had wanted to check a couple of new things on the car and we still have improvements to make in car set up. Rubens's car seemed to be less balanced today than in the test last week so we need to understand why. He only did one day of the test last week so we shall go through everything carefully this evening to see if we can give him a better set up."