In terms of form, all three practice sessions have proved inconclusive with no true picture emerging other than the fact that McLaren has made a huge leap forward, continuing where it left off in Germany.

Brawn and Red Bull have both had their problems this weekend, and while the warmer temperatures expected here this weekend are expected to favour the Brackley team, the Austrian outfit continues to have the edge, even if, once again, Sebastian Vettel appears to be somewhat off the boil.

As we've said before, as far as Brawn is concerned the British team simply doesn't have the financial resources to match Red Bull, however, providing it picks up as many points as possible Jenson Button still stands a chance of keeping his lead in the Drivers' Championship, even if the constructors' title appears doomed. In the last two races Brawn has lost 20 points to its rivals, while Button has lost 9 to both Webber and Vettel, this is a situation that cannot continue.

While Massa looked better this morning, he had all manner of problems yesterday, and it remains to be seen whether the Maranello outfit can build on its Nurburgring success. As for Kimi, it appears the Finn is focussed more on his upcoming WRC outing and whatever announcement might be made at Monza.

Watch out for both McLaren drivers this afternoon and don't be surprised to see a silver car on pole, the Woking team determined to make full use of its KERS tomorrow on this most difficult of circuits, at least in terms of overtaking. While Lewis Hamilton is getting all the attention, Kovalainen is up there, and don't forget he won here last year.

Watch out also for Fernando Alonso, who is looking good this weekend, as is Nico Rosberg.

We hear rumours that Nelson Piquet is holding a special dinner in honour of his crew tonight, ahead of what appears to be his final outing for Renault. As we said, it's a rumour, but it comes from a good source.

Now that Toro Rosso has some significant upgrades, courtesy of Red Bull, we can expect the Faenza outfit to take a step forward, while, thus far, Jaime Alguersuari has proved the sceptics wrong.

With talk of a move to BMW in 2010, Rosberg will be out to impress, the German having looked good in all three sessions thus far.

Tyre options are soft and super-soft, which we will refer to henceforth as hard (soft) and soft (super-soft). The soft (super-soft) option has not only had pace it is also quite durable.

Ahead of today's qualifying session, the air temperature is 23 degrees C, while the track temperature is 41 degrees. Although it is brighter than this morning, it remains cool, certainly compared to yesterday.

The lights go green and Q1 gets underway, Fisichella leading Alguersuari out on to the track.

Fisichella posts the first time of the afternoon, crossing the line at 24.691, however, this is beaten by Alguersuari and then Buemi (22.380). The Swiss driver almost 1.6s quicker than his Spanish teammate. In the Force India garage the crew is working franticly on Sutil's car, the German having crashed out of free practice this morning.