F1’s 75-year anniversary season now returns to its most constant venue, Monza, which has held a world championship race in every season since 1950, apart from one occasion: 1980.
That year the sport headed to Imola for the Italian Grand Prix, and that particular circuit became a constant on the F1 calendar until 2006.
But what makes this race stand alone? What has driven this race through Formula 1’s record books? At the beginning, Italian drivers dominated the sport.
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Nino Farina won this race, in 1950, to become Formula 1’s world champion and Alberto Ascari then won the next two Monza races, in 1951 and 1952; winning the championship in ’52 and ’53.
But the great Italian double world champion would lose his life, at Monza, in 1955. He was testing a Ferrari sports car just days after surviving a crash at Monaco, where his car landed in the principality’s harbour.
But what the fans flock to Monza for is one name, Ferrari. The team are a quasi-religion in this country and have been fervently supported by the ‘Tifosi,’ who have been known to be some of the most passionate fans in the world.
They have seen their team win this race a record-breaking 21 times, most recently last year, when Charles Leclerc’s stunned McLaren by executing a one-stop race and hanging onto his fading hard compound tyres, versus the two-stopping McLarens.
In previous years, the Italian support cheered on for Michael Schumacher, who won this race five times. In 1996 (in his debut Ferrari season); 1998; 2000; 2003 and 2006. And in 1998, the sport enjoyed one of its most evocative moments. David Coulthard’s leading McLaren blew up in smoke, handing the lead to teammate Mika Hakkinen.
But the Finn was being closely pursued by Schumacher, who smartly set up the switchback on the exit of the della Roggia chicane and took the lead himself: the V10 engines and Murray Walker’s commentary then provided the perfect soundtrack.
Listen to the Tifosi ROAR as Michael Schumacher takes the lead in a masterful move past Mika Hakkinen 🤩 #ItalianGP 🇮🇹 #F1 pic.twitter.com/lwYyUyP2hq
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 10, 2021
Schumacher’s thirst for championship-winning glory in a scarlet red car would come in the year 2000; when he became Ferrari’s first world champion since Jody Scheckter, in 1979, who was followed by the mercurial Gilles Villeneuve, who respected an order to allow the South African to win the prize at Ferrari’s home event.
Sportsmanship
While Villeneuve’s gesture on that Monza day was incredibly sportsmanlike, perhaps nothing tops what Brit Peter Collins did in 1956. His Ferrari teammate, Juan Manuel Fangio was heading for the title until his car broke down.
Luigi Musso was asked to cede his car to Fangio (to keep the Argentine’s hopes alive) but did not, leaving Collins to voluntarily hand his car over and thwart his own aspirations of winning the world championship.
Fangio would seal that year’s title later that afternoon, his fourth of five titles that he would amass during his glittering 1950s spell.
Tragedy
Having been a staple on the schedule for so long, unfortunately Monza’s history is tinged with grief. Drivers, spectators and marshals have lost their lives at the hands of the ‘Temple of Speed’ through the years.
Jochen Rindt is Formula 1’s only posthumous world champion, given that he lost his life following a practice crash at the 1970 race. The Austrian, who debated whether to continue after the seeming inevitability of a championship win, had rocketed off the track under braking for the turn that is now known as the ‘Michele Alboreto Curve’.
That is not all: Wolfgang von Trips was involved in a crash that killed himself and 15 spectators, in 1961. And in 1978, the popular Ronnie Peterson passed away the morning after his horrific crash at the start of a race in which Lotus teammate Mario Andretti would be crowned world champion.
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