At the Autodromo di Monza today, the Marussia F1 Team's Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton ended the day in 17th and 19th positions respectively for the Marussia F1 Team, after the first two free practice sessions for Sunday's 53 lap Italian Grand Prix.

The home race weekend for Marussia's powertrain partner Scuderia Ferrari got off to a good start, with the Team doing a good job to fine-tune the MR03 to the demands of this high-speed, very low-downforce circuit.

Jules Bianchi: "It's great to be back here at Monza, at the start of what I think can be a promising weekend. It has taken us the two sessions to get the car much closer to a more ideal balance, but I'm pretty comfortable with where we have finished the first day. We're close to Sutil and ahead of the two Lotuses, so although we still have some work to do ourselves, I think we can perhaps enjoy a good race here in front of the Scuderia Ferrari home crowd."

Max Chilton: "I'm pleased with how things have gone on the first day of running. This morning in FP1 the car felt good pretty much straight away, so it has been more about fine-tuning it to try to move us forward. Jules and I have been close on the timesheets for most of the day and I'm sandwiched between the two Lotus cars and ahead of both Caterhams, so I think there are some positive signs there for the weekend ahead."

John Booth, Team Principal: "A promising start to the weekend in Monza. Both drivers have been happy with the balance of the car from the get-go. FP1 was spent evaluating rear downforce levels, with Jules trying both rear wing solutions and Max staying on the higher downforce rear wing as a baseline. Overall we felt that the lower downforce solution was the optimum, considering that the grip levels will be increasing throughout the weekend. This afternoon both drivers worked through fine-tuning the set-up before getting down to the long runs. The good news is that the balance that they are happy with seems to be translating well across all tyre types and fuel loads, so it seems this evening will be more about fine-tuning rather than wholesale changes and then we look forward to seeing how things look in FP3."

Check out our Practice gallery, here.