Top ten magic Monza moments

No circuit has hosted more world championship grands prix than Monza. The parkland circuit has produced some of the greatest moments in motor-racing history, be they tremendous finishes, momentous achievements or outpourings of great emotion.

Whether this weekend's race will provide such a moment, only time will tell. But in the build-up to Sunday's race, what better way to tune into the history of one of the sport's greatest tracks then relive some of its greatest moments?

10. The first world champion (1950)

Alfa Romeo's famous 'three fs' - Juan Manuel Fangio, Giuseppe Farina and Luigi Fagioli - each headed into the final race of the inaugural world championship season at Monza with a shot at being crowned. As the senior driver, Farina was always the favourite, even though Fangio was the faster driver, and it was the wild man of the pre-war era who prevailed.

Fangio looked in good shape before the race, taking pole position, but his championship chances faded when he retired from the race not once, but twice! A gearbox failure after 23 laps forced him to stop his Alfa Romeo 158 and he took over the car of Piero Taruffi, one of two additional drivers run by the Italian marque at Monza. Almost immediately, Fangio had to retire that car after it suffered an engine failure.

Farina took a comfortable victory, but only after fending off an early challenge from Alberto Ascari, who had a new 4.5-litre powerplant at his disposal. Ascari did finish second, albeit after retiring his car and taking over Dorino Serafini's sister machine, with Fagioli taking third. That was more than enough for Farina to become the first world champion.

9. Hondala is a winner (1967)

Honda's first foray into Formula 1 had been only a qualified success, with just one victory since first appearing during the 1964 season. Star driver John Surtees had finished in the top three only once in a Honda RA273 prior to the 1967 Italian Grand Prix. Convinced that the car was fundamentally flawed, he persuaded Honda to commission Lola to design and build it a new car. The RA300, dubbed the 'Hondola', which made its debut at Monza.

Surtees himself had played a key role in the car concept but qualified only ninth, 1.8 seconds off pole position man Jim Clark.

The Scot looked certain to take victory despite an early puncture, only to run out of fuel in the last lap. Surtees led into the Parabolica on the last lap, but he had Jack Brabham right on his tail.

Black Jack dived up the inside of Surtees into the right-hander, getting out of shape and running very wide. Surtees dived back inside the Brabham mid-corner and held the lead. But Brabham still had more to offer, coming back at the Honda on the run to the line and finishing just three-tenths behind. Watch it here on Youtube.

The Hondola had taken an amazing win on its debut. It was Honda's last win in F1 for almost 40 years.

8. Schumacher's first Monza win (1996)

Michael Schumacher had already won twice for Ferrari in the unwieldy F310, but the tifosi had yet to take the German to their heart. His victory in the 1996 Italian Grand Prix, his first as a Ferrari driver, won plenty of them over.

As expected, Williams pairing Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve locked out the front row. Schumacher started third on the grid, but by the first chicane he was down in sixth place having also been passed by Benetton driver Jean Alesi and the McLarens of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard.

On the second lap, Schumacher moved up to fourth after passing Villeneuve and Coulthard hit a tyre stack. He then moved up to third when Hakkinen pitted to change his front wing. Then, Hill clipped a tyre at the first chicane, meaning that Alesi led from Schumacher. The German took it relatively easy for the first part of the race and decided to attack around the pit-stops.

His in-lap was 2.5s faster than Alesi's and his outlap was almost 1.4 seconds faster and, by pitting two laps later than the Frenchman, Schumacher ended up with a five second lead.

From there, he was never going to lose. So a seven-year Monza victory drought came to an end for Ferrari.

7. Prost gives it away (1989)

Alain Prost had already turned his back on McLaren and was heading to Ferrari for the following season when he headed to Monza in 1989. Team-mate and bitter rival Ayrton Senna had the race in the bag before suffering an engine failure, handing the Frenchman victory.

Prost's win gave him a 20-point lead in the drivers' championship with four races to go, and also clinched the constructors' crown for McLaren. But all was not well in his relationship with McLaren and he hinted that the team might prefer the coveted number one to stay at Woking rather than Prost taking it to Maranello.

"I know what can stop me but under normal conditions I would say I should be world champion," said Prost. "But at the moment, I have so many problems that sometimes I can have one second or even more difference to Ayrton."

It was against this backdrop that Prost decided to drop the trophy to the crowd below the podium. Despite leaning over the guardrail and giving those below plenty of time to compose themselves, the silverware did not survive fully intact, but the fans were still very appreciative of the gesture.

By dropping the trophy, Prost bought himself a little love from the tifosi. But far more significantly, he wound up team boss Ron Dennis, who was always fastidious about collecting the spoils of victory - as any visit to McLaren's remarkable display of silverware at the MTC proves.

6. Rosberg's record broken (2002)

Keke Rosberg's qualifying lap record for the 1985 British Grand Prix once looked unbeatable. The Williams driver lapped Silverstone at an average of 160.938mph, a mark that stood for 17 years until it was beaten by Juan Pablo Montoya in 2002.

The Colombian, aided by BMW increasing the rev limit on its 3-litre powerplant to 19000rpm, set a best time of 1m20.264s in qualifying for the 2002 Italian Grand Prix. This equated to 161.449mph - a new record.

"I've got to say that my pole position lap on Saturday generated a lot of interest," wrote Montoya in his AUTOSPORT column after the race. "It was not only good because we stopped Ferrari taking pole on home ground after a season when it has been winning everything, but because it was the fastest qualifying lap in Formula 1 history."

But this wasn't the end of it. Two years later, the record feel again as Rubens Barrichello averaged 161.809mph in taking pole position for Ferrari.

"Only God is perfect, but it was very close to perfection," said Barrichello of his lap."It's unbelievable the way I took Lesmo. I'm so proud and I'm so relived."

So Barrichello holds the record to this day. Well, sort of. Often overlooked by those only with eyes for pole position times is that Montoya's 2002 record was beaten by four drivers during the pre-qualifying session that dictated the running order for single-lap qualifying.

Fastest of all of those drivers was... Montoya, who went even quicker than Barrichello at 162.957mph. In reality, the Colombian had extended his record mark, which stands to this day.

5. Vettel makes his mark (2008)

It would have been inconceivable for a Minardi to win the Italian Grand Prix - yet thanks to the brilliance of Sebastian Vettel, it did just that. Granted, the team was now in its better-funded Scuderia Toro Rosso guise, and had a Red Bull chassis at it disposal, but it was still a remarkable victory.

Vettel's performance to take pole position impressed, but few - including second-place starter and pre-race favourite Heikki Kovalainen - expected him to stay there in the race. But he did.

In wet conditions, Vettel controlled the race to perfection (straightlining the first chicane on one occasion not withstanding), becoming the youngest driver ever to win a world championship grand prix. Yes, the Toro Rosso-Ferrari was a good car, but it wasn't a race-winning car. It took Vettel's extraordinary ability to achieve that.

After the race, the atmosphere in and around the Toro Rosso garage was fantastic. Fernando Alonso, who started out as a Minardi driver, was among those to head down to the STR garage to congratulate the team and many of those who he had worked with in 2001.

4. Fangio wins for Maserati (1953)

During the 1952 Monza Grand Prix, Juan Manuel Fangio made a mistake that came close to claiming his life, losing control at Lesmo 2 and flipping his Maserati. The crash kept him out of competition until the following season, but he conquered the ultra-fast Milanese track the following year.

During 1952 and 1953, the world championship was staged only for Formula 2 -specification machinery. The last race of that era was the 1953 Italian Grand Prix and, until then, Ferrari had won every single points-paying grand prix. The Maserati A6GCM, driven by Fangio, had sometimes threatened, but it seemed that Ferrari would complete a two-season lockout.

It took an incredible drive from Fangio even to stay in touch at the front. At the start, he scrapped with Ferrari pairing Alberto Ascari and Giuseppe Farina, with protege Onofre Marimon also keeping his Maserati in contention.

It all came down to the last corner, with Fangio, who had just passed Farina, heading into the final corner behind Ascari. The Italian turned in too aggressively and spun. Fangio and Farina just avoided him, while Marimon was not so lucky.

Ascari's mistake handed victory to Fangio, giving Maserati its long sought-after world championship race win.

"They say I was almost hysterical that day, and I'm not surprised, although as a rule I'm usually rather calm," he later recalled.

3. Gethin by a nose (1971)

When it comes to the classic Monza slipstreamers, 99 per cent of the races were usually mere setup for the finish. The 1971 Italian Grand Prix produced one of the most remarkable final seconds of a motor-race of any kind.

It boiled down to a five-car dash to the line. In the final reckoning, BRM driver Peter Gethin led home Ronnie Peterson's March by just one-hundredth of a second. Just nine-hundredths behind Gethin was third-place finisher Francois Cevert. Mike Hailwood, 0.18s down, and Howden Ganley, 0.61s behind Gethin, must have been pretty disappointed to end up outside the top three despite finishing so close to Gethin. Watch it here on Youtube.

It was the last time that a grand prix was held at Monza without any chicanes. It was a fitting farewell to a track configuration that never failed to produce thrilling racing.

2. Ferrari's valedictory victory (1988)

On 14 August 1988, Enzo Ferrari passed away at the age of 90. The second grand prix held after his death was the Italian Grand Prix, and the tifosi hoped against hope that the Scuderia might be able to break McLaren's victory strangehold.

Qualifying went as expected, with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost locking out the front row. Behind them were Gerhard Berger and Michele Alboreto, making it an all-Ferrari second rank. At the start, Prost jumped Senna, but on the run to the first chicane the Brazilian powered back past.

With McLaren first and second, it was business as usual. Even when Prost retired with an engine failure, with Senna still going strong at the front at the start of the penultimate lap, a McLaren victory was assured. Or so it seemed.

But that was before Senna happened upon Williams stand-in Jean-Louis Schlesser. The Frenchman locked up and went very deep into the first chicane. Senna dived inside, but, took the second apex, where Schlesser keeping as well out of the way as he could by clambering over the kerbs having had to turn into the corner. They clashed and the McLaren spun, ending up beached on the kerb.

Berger and Alboreto blasted past, taking a one-two and sending the tifosi wild. Enzo would surely have approved.

1. Andretti's comeback pole (1982)

Some have described qualifying for the 1982 Italian Grand Prix as the greatest day in the history of Monza. It had been a dreadful season for Ferrari, which lost Gilles Villenueve at Zolder and then suffered the double blow of Didier Pironi's grand prix career being ended by a huge crash during a sodden session at Hockenheim.

Enzo Ferrari needed a second driver for the Italian Grand Prix to partner Patrick Tambay, who had been drafted in as Villeneuve's successor. He convinced Mario Andretti to drive for him again, almost a decade since the great American's last grand prix outing for Ferrari.

Crucially, Andretti had the opportunity to get to know the Ferrari 126C2 in a pre-race test, so come Saturday he was able to snatch pole position in the dying minutes of qualifying. By beating Brabham driver Nelson Piquet by just 35 thousandths of a seconds, he sent the tifosi into raptures and left many in tears.

There was to be no fairytale victory in the race. Despite this, Andretti still finished on the podium behind winner Rene Arnoux's Renault and Tambay. But the tifosi didn't mind, for they had a Ferrari driver on the podium and memories of that incredible Saturday.

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- The Autosport.com Team

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