Autodromo Nazionale Monza

How it began

The circuit was built in the park of the royal villa at Monza, near Milan, in a few months of 1922. It opened on 3 September 1922, and on 10 September it hosted the Italian Grand Prix, won by Pietro Bordino in a Fiat. It is one of the oldest permanent racing circuits in the world.

The Italian Grand Prix has been held at Monza since the World Championship’s first season: on 3 September 1950 Nino Farina won the race for Alfa Romeo and on the same day became the first world champion. The only time the circuit missed out was 1980, when Imola hosted the Italian Grand Prix. The contract has been extended until 2031.

The track

The lap is 5.793 km long, the race is 53 laps, and there are only eleven corners. It is the fastest track on the calendar: long straights, the lowest wing angles and the highest speeds of the season — hence its nickname, the “Temple of Speed”.

The chicanes — on the main straight, the della Roggia and the Ascari — appeared in the 1970s, the first of them in 1972, to break up the fast sections; before that the lap consisted almost entirely of straights and long curves. Curva Grande, the two Lesmo corners and the closing Parabolica survive from the old layout; in 2021 the Parabolica was renamed in honour of Michele Alboreto.

Next to the road circuit are the remains of the banked oval built in 1955: it was included in the Grand Prix distance in 1955, 1956, 1960 and 1961, and then abandoned.

Memorable races

On 10 September 1961 Wolfgang von Trips crashed fatally on the second lap, and fifteen spectators were killed; the title went that day to his Ferrari team-mate Phil Hill. On 5 September 1971 Peter Gethin won the closest race in championship history: less than a second covered the top five at the finish, and he beat Ronnie Peterson by one hundredth of a second.

On 11 September 1988, a month after Enzo Ferrari’s death, Gerhard Berger and Michele Alboreto finished first and second — the only race of the season that McLaren did not win. On 6 September 2020 Pierre Gasly won for AlphaTauri: the first win by a Frenchman in the championship since 1996.