The first of the practice running for Sunday's Italian Grand Prix got underway today at the Monza circuit in northern Italy.

Brawn GP's Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button used the two ninety-minute sessions to evaluate their Brawn-Mercedes cars in the low downforce configuration required at the fastest circuit on the Formula One calendar.

Rubens completed 59 laps over the course of the day with Jenson totalling 53 laps as the pair focused on set-up work and an evaluation of the two Bridgestone Potenza tyre compounds available this weekend.

Rubens Barrichello: "Our programme went pretty much as planned today with the performance of the car as we were expecting. Our set-up work was focused on long runs and I'm fairly happy with how the car feels and with the braking stability. We have some work to do on the balance but overall a good start to the weekend although today's running doesn't really give us an indication of how qualifying will play out tomorrow."

Jenson Button: "We did a lot of set-up work today with the car in the low downforce configuration although we had a couple of issues which meant that I couldn't do the long runs that we had planned so that was a bit frustrating. Everything was sorted out by the end of the day which is good but we have a lot of work ahead of us. It feels very different running with such low downforce but the car has been performing reasonably well. We need to work on the fine-tuning of the set-up overnight to ensure that I'm completely happy with the balance before qualifying."

Ross Brawn: "With Monza being such a unique low downforce circuit and the fact that we haven't had the opportunity to here test this year, today's practice sessions were particularly important to work on the set-up of the car. Our main focus has been on race preparation to ensure that we understand how the car feels with the low downforce. We're reasonably happy with our progress over the course of the day and looking forward to the weekend ahead."

To check out our Monza practice gallery, click here