An incredible deluge towards the end of morning practice for the Italian grand prix on Friday halted running and left the F1 teams' garages flooded.

Drainage systems in the pitlane of the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza struggled to cope with the reams of driving rain, leaving drivers needing to sit on benches in order to keep their boots dry.

Mechanics had to switch their attention from the cars to simply sweeping water out of their pit boxes, and some lifted the grates on the pitlane drains to see why the water was not dissipating.

Race control threw the red flag on the 90 minute session with a few minutes still to run.

For the record, Force India's rain specialist Adrian Sutil topped the timesheets, with his teammate Giancarlo Fisichella third quickest.

The two Ferraris did only 5 laps apiece, while the McLarens ventured out only for untimed installation laps.

It was still raining hard five minutes after the session ended.

Source. GMM