Fast facts ahead of the Italian Grand Prix

F1 Grand Prix, GP Italy, Autodromo Nazionale di Monza

Italy welcomes the Formula One field for the third act of the season’s second triple header with drivers eager to flex their musvles at the legendary Autodromo Nazionale Monza. F1Technical's Balázs Szabó analyses what to know ahead of the 72nd Formula One Italian Grand Prix.

Historic track – Today’s Italian Grand Prix will be the 72nd race in Italy which means that the race has been staged in every single year since the the FIA Formula One Championship was launched back in 1950. Of the 71 Italian Grands Prix, 70 race have taken place at Monza. The only exception happened in 1980 when Imola played host to the Italian Grand Prix.

The German and the Briton – Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton are the most successful drivers in the history of the Italian Grand Prix. Both drivers have won on five occasions. Nelsion Piquet sits behind the duo on this list with four victories to his name. Of the current field, only Sebastian Vettel is a multiple race winner at Monza – he has been victorious on three occasions.

Ferrari on home soil – The Scuderia is the most successful team in the Italian Grand Prix with 19 triumphs followed by McLaren with ten wins. Mercedes has won seven times and has been the dominant force since the hybrid power unit were introduced in 2014. However, the team from Brackley was unable to win in the last two years as the 2019 Italian Grand Prix saw Charles Leclerc show a heroic performance to secure his second F1 victory while it was AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly, who came out on top after a chaotic race.

Three compounds – The sport’s tyre supplier Pirelli is providing tyres from the middle of its range at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix. The C2 compound will feature as the white-banded hard tyres, with the C3 as the medium tyres and C4 featuring as the red soft tyre.

The Brazilian – Lewis Hamilton set the fastest ever lap around Monza in the qualifying session for last year's Italian Grand Prix, but the fastest race lap record dates back to 2004. It was Rubens Barrichello who set a time of 1m21.046 with Ferrari that is still the official track record at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza.

Two DRS zones - There will be two DRS zones in Italy. The detection point for the first zone will be 95m before Turn 7, with the activation point 170m after Turn 7. The second detection point will be 20m before Turn 11, with the activation point 115m after the finish line.

Sponsors – The Italian Grand Prix has had a title sponsor since 1988 when Coca-Cola became the major partner of the event. Following four years with the American multinational beverage corporation, the Italian Grands Prix have been sponsored by Pioneer, Campari, Vodafone, Santander and Heineken.

Long cirucit – The Autodromo Nazionale Monza is a relatively long circuit with its length of 5.793km. The race distance will be 306.720km with drivers required to complete 53 laps to cover the entire distance.

Changes - There have been no changes of significance to the circuit since last year's event.

The famous Turn 11 - The iconic Parabolica corner of the Monza circuit has been just renamed after former Italian racing driver, Michele Alboreto. The Italian raced in Formula 1 between 1981 and 1994, winning five grands prix and finishing second in the 1985 World Championship to Alain Prost. Tragically, he was killed in a testing accident at the Lausitzring in April 2001 at the age of 44.

Stewards – The international FIA race stewards will be Tim Mayer, Vitantonio Liuzzi and Garry Connelly. The trio will work together with Paolo Longoni who will take on the role of the national steward.

Fastest lap - Three drivers on the current grid have fastest laps at this race. Lewis Hamilton set the fastest race lap on six, Kimi Räikkönen on three occasions while Daniel Ricciardo achieved this feat in 2017 with Red Bull.

The returnee - After standing in for Kimi Räikkönen at Zandvoort, Robert Kubica has returned for this weekend to deputize for the Finn, who is still recovering at his home from Covid-19 . The Italian Grand Prix has a special place in Kubica's 98-race F1 career as Monza is the only venue where he stood on the podium for two times. The 36-year-old took his maiden F1 podium with BMW-Sauber in 2006, and he was also third in 2008.