Ahead of today's all-important qualifying session at the 'Temple of Speed', the air temperature is 25 degrees C, whilst the track temperature is 43 degrees C. It remains bright and sunny.

Lewis Hamilton was quickest this morning, as he was yesterday morning, whilst teammate - and arch-rival, or is that arch-enemy - Nico Rosberg was side-lined by a gearbox issue. The team opened the unit, under the watching eyes of the FIA, but there will be no penalties as the gearbox doesn't need to be replaced since the issue was traced to the electrics.

However, it wasn't all plain sailing for Hamilton who had brake issues and also a temporary problem with his DRS.

Putting aside the big question of the Mercedes in-house battle, the big talking point is tyres, with the option (medium) only around 0.5s quicker than the prime (hard) and, in most cases, only good enough for one lap.

Possibly fired up by the presence of some of Ferrari's top brass, including Piero Ferrari, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen were on the pace this morning (and yesterday), however they will be hard-pushed to give the Mercedes-powered teams a run for their money with Williams and McLaren looking very strong.

With the superiority of its aero package almost redundant here, Monza being all about brute force, we don't expect any major surprises from Red Bull this weekend even should the Silver Arrows duo do the unthinkable at the first chicane tomorrow. Should that be the case, expect Williams, in particular, and McLaren, to pick up the pieces, though Bernie will want to see a home win for Ferrari a la 1988.

Daniil Kvyat is the first driver to be penalised as a result of the controversial, and somewhat ludicrous, new power unit component rules, the Russian demoted ten places after Toro Rosso opted to change his engine.

That said, Kvyat's problems are but nothing compared to those at Lotus where Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado will do well to make it through Q1. The Lotus is absolutely appalling here.

Also, despite their Mercedes power units, Force India has been less than impressive, Perez missing most of this morning's running due to a gearbox issue.

The lights go green and Bianchi, Kobayashi and Chilton get proceedings underway. Rosberg is another early riser, though this will merely be an installation run after the work carried out on his car since FP1. That said, he might go for a couple of simulation runs. Indeed, Hamilton is told he will be "doing laps on 2, 4 and 6".

Kobayashi posts 28.299 with Perez posting 28.426 moments later.

Most are on the prime rubber, not so Kobayashi or his Caterham teammate.

A 27.516 sees Vergne go quickest as all but Grosjean are on track.

Rosberg and Alonso are both on hot laps, the Spaniard posts 26.514 but this is almost instantly eclipsed by the German (25.862).

Hamilton goes quickest with a 25.571 with Massa slipping in a 25.607 moments later. The Brazilian watched by Claire Williams and Patrick Head.

A big twitch in Ascari for Raikkonen who subsequently stops the clock at 27.419 to go ninth.

As Massa goes quickest in S1, Bottas goes fourth overall (26.012). Maldonado still in the drop zone despite being on option rubber. Teammate Grosjean is yet to make an appearance.

From out of nowhere, Massa produces a 25.528 to go quickest, eclipsing Hamilton by 0.043s.

Magnussen leapfrogs Alonso with a 26.514, Mercedes now filling the top five places.

A 25.493 sees Rosberg go quickest as Hamilton complains that his was "a rubbish lap".

With 6:00 remaining, Sutil joins the 'usual suspects' in the drop zone.