F1, a century of Monza: the history of the birth of the racetrack in the centenary

2022 is the year of the centenary of the birth of the racetrack and in Monza 5 million euros arrive from the state as part of the Financial Maneuver and another 15 million will follow in 2023. Money that will be used for new works capable of guaranteeing the Brianza track at least the standards necessary to carry out the Formula 1 world round on 11 September 2022, including the resurfaced track and the arrangement of the underpasses. These 20 million euros are manna from heaven to start the first works but to really renovate the entire plant would need much more figures: 100 million!

rethink monza

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The centenary must be an opportunity not only for a restyling and an overall polish but to modernize the racetrack as a whole, also exploiting unique features in the world, such as the recovery of the high-speed track which is not only industrial archeology, but a special venue for hosting historic car and motorcycle races, the flagship for a truly unique hall of fame in the world. It goes without saying that in the relaunch of the racetrack, a place must be found to allow motorcycles in its various forms and motorcycling racing to return through the “big door”, while fully safeguarding safety. It can be done, it must be done, not in the logic of amarcord but in the name of sport and quality events, culture and business as has happened in the past and also happens today in other European and non-European countries. On the other hand, Monza has shown right from the start, exactly one hundred years ago, that it knows how to work miracles in thinking, designing and building a racetrack, practically starting from scratch.

monza is born

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In January 1922 a resolution of the Automobile Club of Milan gave way to the project for the construction of the circuit inside the Monza park established on 14 September 1805 by the will of the Emperor Bonaparte with the aim of creating an agricultural estate and a hunting reserve of over 700 hectares, three times larger than the mythical Parisian park of Versailles. The push to create a permanent track that will later become the “temple of speed” of motoring and national and international motorcycling came from the “tricolor” defeat in the first Italian Grand Prix on 4 September 1921 held on a street circuit in Montichiari. near Brescia where the Italian cars (Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Isotta Fraschini, Maserati) had been beaten by the French Ballot 3/8 LC (3000 cc, 107 HP, 190 km / h twin cam eight cylinder) also thanks to the quality of the Pirelli tires that allowed the first and second finishers, Jules Goux and Jean Chassagne, to cover the 30 laps of the 17.3 km (519 km) track in a little more than 3 and a half hours, without stopping in the pits. A hard blow and also a provident lesson for the Italian teams: a competitive car and good drivers were not enough to win, but the tests that French cars were already doing on closed circuits were needed, thus asking to have an adequate permanent track in Italy for test their racing cars in view of the Grand Prix.

And the racetrack is it

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The Automobile Club of Milan took up the challenge by setting up SIAS (Società Incremento Automobilismo e dello Sport) on 17 January 1922, which was granted the concession of a part of the Royal Park of Monza to build a circuit. It was not a question of connecting roads already present in the Park but of building a real large racetrack along the lines of the already legendary Indianapolis built in the USA in 1909 and the English Brooklands track, operational since 1907. Overcoming many initial obstacles of a financial and bureaucratic-institutional the project gets underway: it is a street circuit of 5,500 meters and a high-speed loop of 4,500 meters with all the necessary connections and services. An extraordinary work that began on May 15, 1922 and carried out in record time: 110 working days with 5,000 workers and technicians, 250 wagons, 50 trucks, two small 5 km long decauville railways with two special locomotives and 250 wagons. For those times, an economic investment and an array of forces never seen before: the racetrack was completed and made accessible on 28 July 1922 when Pietro Bordino and Felice Nazzaro in a Fiat 570 descended for the first time on the new track, making an encore with others. runners, for a “parade” test, on 20 August 1922 together with some centaurs including Tazio Nuvolari carried in triumph by the cheering crowd. It is the beginning of the new great adventure.

the legend of monza

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The Monza racetrack, with its races, its racing cars, its champions, immediately became the flag of Made in Italy motorsport, one of the main world motorsport centers, a boost for the nascent car and motorcycle industry, born in France but with Italy immediately the main European challenger. In the early years of the twentieth century, races began to be held in Europe and America on tracks to be repeated several times, including the Targa Florio commissioned in 1906 by the wealthy driver and pioneer passionate about engines Vincenzo Florio, former promoter of the Coppa Florio in Brescia in 1900. One year before the opening of the Monza racetrack, there was the Circuito del Lario motorcycle competition (emulation of the English Isle of Man Tourist Trophy) which was successfully held for fifteen editions between 1921 and 1939. L he official opening of the new mega plant in Brianza located inside the splendid Royal Park takes place on 3 September 1922 under pouring rain, with the cutting of the ribbon made by the Prime Minister, Luigi Facta, who starts the race for small cars won by Pietro Bordino on a Fiat 501 racing model. The following week, 10 September, in front of 200,000 spectators from all over Europe (there were also 2,500 Fiat workers who arrived in Monza with a special company train), Bordino himself, this time in a Fiat 804 6-cylinder, dominates the second car Grand Prix. of Italy (80 laps in 5h43’13 ”average 139.855 km / h) in front of brand mate Felice Nazzaro and Pierre De Vizcaya on Bugatti T30. Bordino collected 100,000 lire (about 100,000 euros today) but did not take home the most coveted prize: a precious reproduction of the “iron crown”, preserved in the city cathedral, which had even girded the head of Charlemagne, Charles V and Napoleon. With that symbolic homage, Monza was meant to be a temple of speed which, however, was not realized due to the intervention of the Government. It is said that the premier himself feared that this coronation could represent a contempt to the monarchy and therefore prohibited it with a telegram shortly before the ceremony. However, a triumphal day for the “tricolor”, anticipated on September 8 by the first motorcycle Grand Prix of Nations (valid for the European Championship, the current World Championship) dominated by Italian riders: in the 350 Ernesto Gnesa on Garelli “3HP” the “2 cylinders without valves”, in the 750 Armando Fieschi on Douglas and in the 1000 class Amedeo Ruggeri on Harley Davidson, the V-twin that the previous year had gone down in history for exceeding 160 km / h (100 mph). To understand the technical value of that first Monza GP, just think that the three category winners covered the 400 km of their respective (wet) races at an hourly average of over 100 km.

racetrack … gym

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Thanks also to the push from Monza, Italian riders and Italian motorcycles are becoming more and more protagonists on the circuits and in the markets. All kinds of races are born like mushrooms everywhere and motorcycling becomes a mass sport. After the Second World War, motorcycling and motor racing become “world champions”. Since the first world race in 1949, Ferrari has triumphed 21 times, sending the ever-present “red tide” into ecstasy. Even the great Italian motorcycle manufacturers have signed pages of glory in Monza. At his world championship baptism in 1949, the Monza track immediately consecrated the Italian drivers on Italian racing cars: Pagani (125 on Mondial and 500 on Gilera), Ambrosini (250 on Benelli), Frigerio (sidecar on Gilera). Monza, everyone in the world knows what it is and what it has represented for motorsport for 100 years. Monza also had its limits, especially with respect to safety with tragedies that marked the many dark moments. Critical phases overcome not without difficulty, always renewing itself, to keep up with the evolution of regulations, technologies of racing cars and society, however regulating great emotions and thus writing the great history of Motorsport almost continuously, for a century.