F1: Schumacher Fastest In First Monza Practice

Formula 1

F1: Schumacher Fastest In First Monza Practice

Michael Schumacher showed the way in Friday's opening runs in Italy...

Jared Turner | Posted September 07, 2012 Monza (ITA)

For the first time in what feels like a long time, Friday featured a P1 session held under bright sunshine.

And for the first time in what feels like an eternity, Michael Schumacher was on top.

Trudging through a season marred by all manner of misfortune, the seven-time World Champion paced Friday's opening practice round at Monza with a quick lap of 1:25:422 in his Mercedes.

Last week's winner, Jenson Button (1:25:723), clocked in second, followed by Schumacher's Mercedes teammate, Nico Rosberg.

The rest of the top 10 consisted of Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen, Sergio Perez, Mark Webber and Pastor Maldonado.

Reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel was 11th, more than a second off Schumacher's leading time.

The 90-minute session wasn't all good, however, for Alonso, the World Championship leader who is running this weekend in Ferrari's home country of Italy.

The Spaniard's car came to a stop in the session's final moments, after Alonso appeared to switch off his engine as a result of a technical issue.

Also experiencing trouble in the late going was Maldonado's Williams, which came to a halt on the track due to an apparent mechanical gremlin. Maldonado already faces a 10-place grid penalty this weekend for infractions last weekend at Spa.

HRT test driver Ma Qing Hua made history on Friday in becoming the first Chinese-born driver to take part in a Grand Prix weekend, as he stood in for race driver Narain Karthikeyan.

Sunday's Italian Grand Prix is the 13th of 20 events on the 2012 Formula One calendar, which concludes in late November with the Brazilian GP.

Coming into the weekend, Alonso leads the drivers' standings by 24 points over Vettel and 32 over Webber. Raikkonen (-33) and Hamilton (-47) complete the top five.

Alonso leads F1 in victories with three, while Webber, Button and Hamilton, with two victories apiece, are the season's other repeat winners.

Jared Turner is an Associate Editor for SPEED.com, covering NASCAR and Formula One, and is an Editor for TruckSeries.com. His professional motorsports writing career began in 2005.