Italian GP - Facts and Figures

    HISTORY
    The Autodromo de Monza was built in the Royal park of the same name in 1922. Its most innovative feature was a two-track layout; a normal road course and a banked oval; the two circuits offering the potential to be run together. Some of the oval is still in place today, although sadly neglected and overgrown. In 1955, the Italian GP was run over both tracks, so that cars passed the start-finish line twice every lap, once when completing a circuit of the oval and once on the road section, giving a total lap distance of almost ten kilometres. The banking was last used in 1961, while another F1 landmark was reached the previous year, when Phil Hill, driving a Ferrari, scored the last ever win for a front-engine grand prix car.
    But the one race that really stands out in the modern age is the 1971 Italian GP. In those pre-safety conscious days, Monza was just five corners linked by straights and it was almost impossible for one car to pull away from the slipstreaming pursuers. Chris Amon was on pole in a Matra, but it was Clay Regazzoni in a Ferrari who blasted into the lead on Lap 1, from the fourth row of the grid. The lead changed hands several times until, with 18 laps to go, pole man Amon was back in the lead and looking good for his first ever F1 win. It was not to be for the luckless Kiwi, who is reckoned to be the best driver never to have won a grand prix. Seven laps from the flag, he tried to remove a tear-off visor, the entire unit came away and he dropped back as his eyes took a pasting from the wind. On the final lap, the entire crowd was on its feet and, strangely for Italy, silent with the tension. Ronnie Peterson was leading once again in the March from Francois Cevert in the Tyrrell, Mike Hailwood in the Surtees and Peter Gethin in the BRM, who had started back in eleventh spot. Cevert was in front at Lesmo but as the they approached the long Parabolica curve, Gethin who had moved up to third, summoned all his courage to pass Peterson on the grass, in a cloud of smoke from locked up brakes. More out of shock than anything, Cevert and Peterson moved over, allowing the Englishman to score his only grand prix win. It had been the fastest race in the history of the sport and also provided the closest finish. The first five were covered by just 0.61 of a second and Gethin took the win by one hundredth of a second. 28 years later, this is still the fastest grand prix in history, run at a staggering average speed of 242.615 km/h.

    Only Britain has held as many national grands prix as Italy - one for every year of the Championship - so this will be the 51st Italian Grand Prix. Remarkably, 49 have been held at Monza and one at Imola (1980) so no other circuit has had such a history of Grand Prix racing in the modern World Championship.

    Italy's Autodromo Nazionale, as Monza is known, was originally conceived as a track on which all kinds of vehicles could be tested. Three locations were considered: the site now covered by Malpensa airport; a site in the Cagnola district, then on the outskirts of Milan, and the Villa Reale park in Monza, then owned by the Italian Veteransi institute.

    Monza hosted the first Formula 1 World Championship Italian Grand Prix in 1950 and on the rostrum, at the end of it, were no less than four Italians! Giuseppe Farina won the race, but sharing the second placed Ferrari were Dorino Serafini in his only Grand Prix and Alberto Ascari. Third placed Luigi Fagioli was therefore the fourth Italian in the first three places.

    There were 32 starters in the 1961 race here, the second highest for a Grand Prix and, not surprisingly, it provided the second most retirements ever at 20.

    Monza also staged the shortest full distance grand prix race ever, when the 1987 Italian GP was all over in 1 hour 14m 47.707s.

    Monza has hosted the World Championship-deciding race 12 times, more than any other circuit, but not since 1979 when Jody Scheckter clinched it for Ferrari and became the Italian marque's last World Champion.

    Damon Hill's 1993 fastest race lap at Monza is the fastest F1 lap ever at 155.241mph (249.835kph).

    There have been three Italian World Champions and 78 Italian Grand Prix drivers, 13 of whom have won 39 Grands Prix between them. Another 15 never qualified to race. Among those are one of three Italian women Grand Prix drivers; the other two are the only women ever to have raced in a Grand Prix, and Lella Lombardi was the only women to get into the points.

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