Things to know before the Italian Grand Prix
Formula One actions resumes in Monza, the home of Ferrari and its enthusiastic fans. In its usual emotional way, the Italian Grand Prix will bring the European leg of the 2018 Formula One Championship to an end.
1. The current version of the Monza road course is 5.793km. To cover the total race distance of 306.720km, drivers will complete 53 laps aroud the legandary circuit.
2. No significant changes were made to the track other than the installation of double kerbs at turn 6, 7 and 10.
3. FIA’s race director Charlie Whiting mandated two DRS zones, the first one is 170m after Turn 7 while the second one is 115 after the finish line.
4. The start and finish line are not the same in Monza, the start line is 0,309 km ahead.
5. The Italian and British Grand Prix form the unique duo of races which were held without any interruption since the inception of the World Championship back in 1950. Monza has played host to the Italian Grand Prix in every year except 1980 when Imola was the main protagonist of the Italian Grand Prix racing.
6. Pirelli brought the same selection of medium, soft and supersoft compound as used in Spa. The tyres have behaved quite well and consistently and proved to be durable even on heavy fuel load despite to the high longitudinal forces which act on the tyres out of the slow corners.
7. Michael Schumacher is the most successful driver in the history of the Italian Grand Prix. The German scored all his five wins for Ferrari. Nelson Piquet and Lewis Hamilton both have four wins to their names which they scored for two different teams. The Brazilian won for Williams and Brabham whereas Hamilton split his victories between McLaren and Mercedes.
8. The Italian Grand Prix is the venue of a win scored by a Ferrari-powered car other than Ferrari. It was Sebastian Vettel who took his Toro Rosso Ferrari to victory in 2008. The works Ferrari have won his home race 18 times, eight times more than the second most successful team McLaren.
9. Tim Mayer, Dr Gerd Enser and Danny Sullivan work as race stewards of the 2018 Italian Grand Prix.
10. The lap record was recorded by Rubens Barrichello who set a lap time of 1:21.046 in the 2004 Italian GP. However, the fastest ever lap was completed by Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen in yesterday’s qualifying session. The Finn world champion set commaning pace at the end of the all-important qualifying session with a best time of 1:19.119.
