Fast facts ahead of the Italian Grand Prix

F1 Grand Prix, GP Italy, Autodromo Nazionale di Monza

With the Italian Grand Prix, the European leg of the 2024 Formula One season is set to come to an end. F1Technical’s lead journalist Balazs Szabo delivers some key facts and trivia ahead of the Monza F1 track.

Historic track – Today’s Italian Grand Prix will be the 75th race in Italy which means that the race has been staged in every single year since the FIA Formula One Championship was launched back in 1950. Of the 74 Italian Grands Prix, 73 races 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 apiece. Nelson Piquet sits behind the duo on this list with four victories to his name. Max Verstappen has won twice in Monza, having taken the victory in the last two years.

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 five 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 in 2020.

The following year saw Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen come together with Daniel Ricciardo securing a brilliant victory for McLaren. The last two years belonged to Max Verstappen who took a commanding victory in front of Leclerc and Perez, respectively.

Three compounds – The sport’s tyre supplier Pirelli is providing tyres from the softer end of its range at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix. The C3 compound is featuring as the white-banded hard tyres, with the C4 as the medium tyres and C5 as the red soft tyre.

The Brazilian – The record for the fastest race lap dates back to 2004 when Rubens Barrichello 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 12m 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. This year’s race is sponsored by Formula One’s sole tyre supplier Pirelli.

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 – The Temple of Speed has gone through some key changes compared to last year. The track has been completely resurfaced.

Furthermore, the bollards in the run-off in Turn 2 on the left-hand side have been replaced with a 2.5 wide gravel strip. In addition, between Turns 4 and 5 on the right-hand side, a 2.5m wide gravel strip has been installed.

Stewards – The international FIA race stewards will be Garry Connelly, Mathieu Remmerie and Johnny Herbert. The trio will work together with Valerio Brizzolari 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 debutant - This year's Italian Grand Prix will one driver make his debut at Monza, with Franco Colapinto replacing Logan Sargeant at Williams.