Italian GP McLaren Friday notes

West McLaren Mercedes driver Mika Hakkinen was sixth fastest in today's Free Practice prior to the Italian Grand Prix. Mika did a time of 1:25.343 and completed 37 laps. Teammate David Coulthard's time was 1:25.544 which put him just behind Mika. David did a total of 39 laps. The first practice session took place 10 minutes earlier than normal to allow for the Formula One paddock to hold one minutes silence as a mark of respect to the people who died and their relatives as a result of the tragic events in America earlier this week.

MIKA HAKKINEN
"At Monza it's very important that you have the right balance in order to be able to enter and exit corners at the maximum. It's also a circuit, which places a particular emphasis on horsepower and aerodynamics. We went through our programme today and completed 37 laps and managed to do a lot of work and now we will see what happens tomorrow."

DAVID COULTHARD "We were able to do a lot of running and evaluate a vast amount of data to find our basic balance. We also did the usual brake wear tests as this will be very important in the race where we run in low downforce configuration. Naturally it's difficult to see where we actually are compared to the opposition so we have to wait for tomorrow to get a better picture."

RON DENNIS "A normal disciplined Friday practice where the time differences reflect an even higher fuel variation than normal, which is the result of this race traditionally being a one stop."

NORBERT HAUG "We did a lot of running today and learned quite a bit for the race. It's hard to tell where we are in comparison to our competitors and we expect a tough race for us."

-McLaren