Italian GP Preview: Facts & Stats

Monza is arguably the most historically important race track in F1 championship history. Having appeared on the inaugural schedule in 1950, it has remained in every year since, with the exception of 1980.

Thanks to this, it has played host to some of the most memorable moments in F1 history. For much of the fifties it was the final round, and Giuseppe Farina clinched the first ever championship with victory in 1950, leapfrogging Luigi Fagioli and Juan Manuel Fangio in the standings after a race that took the thick end of three hours.

Also on the podium that day was the obscure figure of Dorino Serafini, as part of a shared drive with Alberto Ascari. To this day, Serafini is the only man to have finished on the podium having made just one Grand Prix start. Indeed, he's one of only three men to even score points in a solitary appearance. The others are Eric Thompson, fifth in the 1952 British GP, and Oscar Galvez, who was also fifth at the 1953 Argentine GP, on the Buenos Aires circuit that now bears his name.

The famous banked oval section of the track was only used four times in the championship era - in 1955-56, and 1960-61, stretching the lap length to exactly 10kms (6.21 miles). In 1956 it witnessed a championship decider unlike any other, when Peter Collins gave up a winning position to hand his car over to Juan Manuel Fangio, who therefore pipped him to the crown.

Down the years Monza has become highly significant for American drivers, and Phil Hill was the first US driver to win a championship race at the 1960 Italian GP.

It was technologically important as it was the last ever victory for a front-engined car - Hill was at the wheel of Ferrari's 246 chassis, while teammate Wolfgang von Trips debuted the "sharknose" 156, which was to dominate the following season.

The same two drivers arrived at Monza in 1961 as the only two realistic contenders for the title. In qualifying, von Trips took an early advantage by taking pole as Ferrari swept the first four positions. It would be the only pole position for a German driver in the first 43 years of the world championship, but thanks to the likes of Nick Heidfeld, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and (mainly) the family Schumacher, they've sat on pole position 77 times since 1994.

The real talk of the session was 19-year-old Ricardo Rodriguez, who put his Ferrari on the front row for his debut. He remains the youngest man ever to start on the front row in Formula One.

Of course, the race was tinged with tragedy when von Trips crashed into the crowd on the second lap, killing him and several onlookers. Phil Hill took the win, which should have set up a last-round shootout at the US Grand Prix - but because of von Trips' death, Hill no longer had any opposition and had become champion in somber circumstances. Although unrelated to the crash, the banking was never used again, except when it appeared in John Frankenheimer's movie Grand Prix in 1966.

Monza '67 will be remembered for arguably the greatest drive in Jim Clark's career. After leading early on, a pitstop to change a flat tyre left him a lap adrift of the field. He made up the lost ground, lapping over a second quicker than the leaders at some points, and on lap 61 he passed Jack Brabham for the lead.

A stunning victory was snatched from him when he ran low on fuel on the final lap, leaving Brabham and Honda's John Surtees in a wheel-to-wheel battle to the line. The Englishman took the win, having only led the last lap, and it was Honda's last F1 victory as a constructor until Jenson Button won the 2006 Hungarian GP.

On a normal race weekend, the 1970 would have been all about Clay Regazzoni, who won for Ferrari in front of the tifosi in only his fifth Grand Prix start. Unfortunately the race was overshadowed by the death of championship leader Jochen Rindt in final qualifying, after crashing at Parabolica.

Clay Regazzoni (Ferrari 312B) 1970 © Jorge Felix/FORIX

Thankfully, Regazzoni would get a second chance to enjoy the occasion, as he won for Ferrari again in 1975. The Swiss driver certainly knew how to rise to an occasion, as of his five career wins, two were in Ferraris at Monza, one was on the Nordschleife, one was in the inaugural championship Long Beach GP, and the other was Williams' first win at the '79 British GP.

As the cars became quicker and quicker, the time came to install chicanes to slow the circuit, ending the great slipstreaming contests for which the circuit was famous. Its last hurrah in unaltered form was in 1971, and Peter Gethin won for BRM at an average speed of 242.620km/h (150.761mph), which would remain the F1 record for 32 years.

For Gethin, it was the only win and the only podium of his career. In a five-car slipstream to the line, he beat Ronnie Peterson, Francois Cevert, Mike Hailwood and Howden Ganley, none of whom had previously won an F1 race. Ganley placed fifth, but was just 0.61s behind the winner, making it still the closest ever five-car finish. Peterson was 0.1s behind Gethin, the closest finish in the days before timing was taken to three decimal places.

Chicanes were added before Curva Grande and the Vialone corner in 1972, the latter becoming the Ascari chicane, named for the double world champion who had crashed to his death there in 1955. These chopped nearly 31 km/h (19mph) off the average speeds, although the chicanes themselves were far from safe in the modern-day sense - the exit of the first left-hander at Ascari still had a tree to hit if you ran wide!

More chicanery arrived in 1976, when a second section was added to what was now the Variante Goodyear at turn 1, and a chicane at the Roggia was installed. That weekend was best remembered for the miracle comeback of Niki Lauda, just 41 days after being given the last rites in hospital following his Nurburgring crash. He finished fourth, as Ronnie Peterson took the third and last victory for a March chassis in F1.

Always great at Monza, Peterson took that win from lowly eighth on the grid. It was his third win on the circuit, following on 1973 and 1974. Much like Ayrton Senna and Imola, Peterson's good form will be forever overshadowed because he lost his life there in 1978. In a repeat of the circumstances from 1961, it made American Mario Andretti the world champion, as Peterson was the only man who could still catch him in the points.

The championship was also clinched there in 1979, when Jody Scheckter led home Gilles Villeneuve in a Ferrari 1-2. However, safety doubts still dogged the circuit, and the Italian GP left Monza for the only time in its history in 1980, when it was held at Imola, a circuit which had held non-championship F1 races in 1963 and 1979. It was an unmemorable affair, apart from Gilles Villeneuve's enormous crash at the right-hander before Tosa, when a rear tyre went down.

At the height of the turbo era in 1986, qualifying at Monza saw levels of power never to be seen again in Grand Prix racing - Gerhard Berger was reported to have seen 5.5 bars of boost on his dashboard display during his runs in the Benetton-BMW. Boost was capped at four bars in 1987 and at 2.5 in 1988, before turbos were banned altogether.

This level of power helped his teammate Teo Fabi onto pole position ahead of Alain Prost's McLaren-TAG, but Fabi stalled on the parade lap and Prost had to start from the pitlane, meaning the 1986 race began with nobody on the front row of the grid.

Nelson Piquet (Williams FW11 Honda) 1986 © LAT

The 1988 race was held just a matter of weeks after the death of Enzo Ferrari, and it seemed as though nobody could stop the dominant McLaren-Hondas, which had won all 11 races until that point in the year.

Alain Prost's mid-race Honda engine failure was rare enough, but with just two laps remaining Ayrton Senna collided with Jean Louis Schlesser, a driver making his only F1 start, causing the Brazilian's retirement. Senna's car remained on the track until the end of the race, as Gerhard Berger and Michele Alboreto took perhaps the most memorable Ferrari 1-2 in history. It was the only McLaren defeat that season, a record that even Ferrari hasn't equaled.

Schlesser's brush with infamy came one day before his 40th birthday, but he still went on to be a highly successful driver afterwards, winning the World Sports Prototype Championship in both 1989 and 1990, and twice winning the Dakar rally in a car of his own construction.

Most gossip in the run-up to the 1991 race surrounded Benetton, who had poached Michael Schumacher away from Jordan after just one race, and paired him with Nelson Piquet, who was making his 200th start. The 199-race discrepancy set the record for biggest gap in experience between teammates, which has only been surpassed by the Schumacher/Patrese line-up at the same team in 1993 (218 races).

Having said that, Schumacher made a mockery of the statistic by both outqualifying and outracing his three-time world champion team leader. The race was unique in that it featured five world champions (past, present or future) in the points.

Winner Nigel Mansell led home Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Schumacher and Piquet. Only fourth-placed Gerhard Berger prevented a clean sweep, which was theoretically possible - Mika Hakkinen was a lapped 14th in his rookie season at Lotus.

Damon Hill was the 1993 winner, making him the only driver ever to win his first three Grands Prix in consecutive races, following on from victories in Hungary and Belgium. It also saw the last points-scoring finish for an American driver, when Michael Andretti finished third for McLaren. Scott Speed had briefly ended that streak at the 2006 Australian GP, but he was demoted from eighth place for overtaking under yellow flags.

Ferrari locked out the front row for the 1994 race, but the main buzz was over Johnny Herbert's fourth place on the grid for Lotus-Mugen-Honda. Until that point in the season Herbert had managed no better than 15th, but a new engine appeared to revitalize the team, which was heading into the abyss. Dreams of a potential victory were dashed at the first corner, when Eddie Irvine punted Herbert into a spin.

The performance proved to be a one-off, and Lotus disappeared from the grid at the end of the season, but Herbert extracted some revenge when he took victory for Benetton in 1995.

McLaren's David Coulthard won the 1997 race, which (as with most events that week) was overshadowed by the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, just a few days earlier. The 2000 race was marred by the death of marshal Paolo Ghislimberti when he was hit by debris in a first-lap crash, while world affairs again cast a pall over proceedings in 2001, as it was the first race after the events of 9/11 - and the mood wasn't helped by news of former F1 driver Alex Zanardi's severe Champ Car accident.

Michael Schumacher seemed to be affected most, as he finished a lowly fourth, the only time in a run of 40 starts across three seasons that he finished a race off the podium. The race was won by Juan Pablo Montoya, making him the first Colombian winner. It also saw the first Malaysian F1 driver (Alex Yoong) and the first from the Czech Republic (Tomas Enge).

Johnny Herbert (Benetton B195 Renault) 1995 © LAT

One year later, it was Montoya who broke Keke Rosberg's 17-year-old record for the fastest ever F1 qualifying lap, at an average of 259.827 km/h (161.454 mph), and in 2003 Michael Schumacher finally beat Peter Gethin's mark for the fastest race in F1 history, when he won at 247.585 km/h (153.847 mph).

Montoya's pole record was beaten by Rubens Barrichello in 2004, when he lapped at 260.395 km/h (161.807mph) - but only after Montoya, Antonio Pizzonia, Jenson Button and Takuma Sato had all lapped even quicker in the first pre-qualifying session.

Montoya's average speed in that session was a stunning 262.242 km/h (162.964 mph), but as it didn't actually count toward his grid slot, opinion is divided on whether his lap or Barrichello's should count as the record. Regardless, no F1 lap has yet eclipsed Jacky Ickx's pole time for the 1973 Spa 1,000kms sportscar race, which remains the all-time road course record, at 263.392 km/h (163.669 mph).

There was to be more statistical debate in qualifying for last year's race, when Kimi Raikkonen was quickest, but forced to start 11th due to an engine penalty. It was only the third time in history that the fastest man in qualifying was not given pole position.

At the 1959 German GP, reserve driver Cliff Alisson was quickest for Ferrari, but owing to his status he had to start at the back, while Jackie Stewart wrote off his primary car for the 1969 British GP shortly after taking pole position with it. As the rules stated that your qualifying lap had to be done by the car you started the race with, Stewart's best time in the spare car was only good enough for second on the grid.

The shenanigans involving Raikkonen elevated Juan Pablo Montoya to pole position, and he converted it into race victory, meaning that five of the last six races here have been from the pole, after a period from 1965-1997 in which the pole-sitter only took three victories here.