I have wanted to visit the Italian Grand Prix for as long as I have been a Formula One fan. The Italians create an atmosphere for racing like nowhere else and the Monza circuit is richly steeped in history. It is also the fastest F1 track of them all so when the opportunity came up this year to make the pilgrimage to Monza I was thrilled to jump at the chance. I’m immensely thankful that I did because it was a fantastic weekend.
I can think of few better experiences than visiting the Italian Grand Prix.
The weekend at Monza was not without its frustrations though, the first of which came trying to reach the circuit on Thursday.
There wasn’t any on-track action during the first ‘official’ day of the GP but all grandstand ticket holders received a pitlane walk in the afternoon, and I wanted to take full advantage of that. It didn’t start until 3pm so I was not in any rush to reach the circuit, which is just as well because it took me several hours!
I was staying near the centre of Milan, which is about 20km away from the township of Monza, and I was able to negotiate the underground and intercity trains that run between the two cities in around 30 minutes. I figured the final leg from Monza railway station to the Autodromo would be equally straightforward.
I was wrong.
The Grand Prix organisers do not run a shuttle bus on the Thursday so we had to make our own way to the circuit. Public busses seemed the best option because taxis were expensive and hard to find. I met a number of other F1 fans at the train station, including a Canadian photographer who works for Ferrari, and together we identified what bus to catch and where it left. This was more difficult than it sounded because the bus numbers and routes had only recently been changed.
The bus we eventually did catch took us on a lethargic zig zag journey across town and managed to find every traffic jam and red light on the way. I had a map with me so was able to keep track of our progress and I wasn’t too happy when the bus started heading in the opposite direction of the circuit. I was even less happy when the bus reached the end of its route, miles from anywhere we wanted to be.
The bus driver simply shrugged his shoulders when we asked him for directions to the Autodromo. This destroyed my faith in the Italian bus system, which had not been particularly strong to start with.
A group of us trudged back through the outskirts of town to the Parco Di Monza which is where the Autodromo is located. However, the park is simply massive and stretches through several suburbs. Finding an entrance to the park was only half of the battle because we then had to find the racetrack within it. Along with that we also had to find the FIA Accreditation Centre where I could pick up my tickets. I figured this would be fairly easy to track down, and I guess it would have been easy to find if I had expected it to be unmarked on the second floor of a BMW dealership!
We only found the Accreditation Centre because we bumped into a Monza volunteer standing on the roadside (perhaps waiting for lost souls like us).
From there we had to find the actual circuit entrance and that was also an interesting experience. We were lucky that one of the guys in our makeshift group had been to Monza before and remembered the main entrance to the circuit was down a laneway that runs beside a service station.
At first I thought he was having a laugh. Surely one of the world’s greatest racetracks would have a more dignified entrance than a small road that runs between people’s houses and backyards, but he was right. We reached the end of the narrow road and walked into the circuit grounds.
I had made it from Milan to Monza in half an hour, but it took a couple of hours to go the final few kilometres. To be honest though I didn’t really care, I was about to start having the time of my life.
The first thing I really wanted to do once I arrived at the racetrack was check out the old banking.
Monza’s layout had previously included an oval circuit and in the 1950’s they decided to give it some awesome banked corners. Perhaps they were a little too eager because the massively steep banking was quickly deemed too dangerous for motor racing.
Remember that drivers in the fifties sat on the fuel tank in a car that had as much protection as a coke can, and did so without helmets or seatbelts whilst racing on public roads. There were plenty of inherent risks in Formula One during that era, but despite all of those the banked corners at Monza were still considered too dangerous!
The problem with the banking was that it was actually made from wood, so it moved about under the strain of a Grand Prix and created a very bumpy surface. Drops of asphalt even fell between gaps in the wooden planks so the cars were literally torn to pieces by the bumpy track surface. The first time the banking was used British teams such a Cooper and BRM were forced to withdraw from the race because their light bodied rear engined cars could not handle the strain.
Standing on the banking as it is today, deserted and surrounded only by the tall forest trees, it seems incredible that anyone managed to race there at all. It was easy to pretend that I had gone back in time fifty years and that Fangio and Ascari were about to race past me through the wilderness. It was actually a little eerie. It was such a thrill to be soaking up the history and it was also the sort of place where it was impossible to take a bad photo. The old paint is still peeling off the rusted guardrail, there are patches of worn and cracked asphalt everywhere, and there is a collection of little pebbles that have gradually rolled down the backing into the inside of the corner over time. It was simply magic.
There was talk some time ago about taking down the banking because it was getting old and decrepit, but doing so would be a crime against motorsport history. I hope they never have to touch the massive structures and I hope that mother nature and father time are kind to them as well, but if something ever does happen to the old Monza banking I will be thankful that I was able to climb all over it.
I was especially thankful that I did so on the Thursday because it is closed off to race fans every other day of the Grand Prix weekend.
Security in general was pretty relaxed on the Thursday at Monza since F1 personnel outnumbered the fans by a ratio of 10-1. As a result we were able to stroll around a few places we probably shouldn’t have, such as the support category paddock and the F1 personnel carpark. Those F1 guys have some pretty nice machinery at their disposal since the carpark featured a collection of Ferraris and even a Pagani Zonda. At one point we were checking out the latest BMW M6 only to have Mario Theissen walk over and say hello as he jumped in. That was quite a surprise!
We were also able to hang around the paddock entrance where Tonio Liuzzi kept the small crowd entertained, and where anyone wearing a Ferrari team uniform was mobbed.
Whilst fumbling our way around the back of the pits we found where our pitlane walk was going to start (which, like everything else in Italy, was not signposted and impossible to find other than by chance).
The pitwalk was far more enjoyable than I had expected. The teams had to wheel theirs cars up and down the pitlane from their garages to the scrutineering bay so we were able to get within touching distance of the machinery. In fact, once I got chatting to a few of the Renault mechanics I made sure to get my hands all over Alonso’s car as much as possible. I’m attributing the Spaniards fine fourth place finish in the Grand Prix to the fingerprints of mine that adorned his rear wing.
There was a great atmosphere in the pitlane and I felt totally immersed in Formula One whilst I was there. You could be standing just metres away from a team practising their pitstops whilst another team rolled their car down the pitlane behind you. It was just fantastic and I’m not surprised I stayed there for hours.
I asked the Renault mechanics if they were annoyed at having to deal with throngs of F1 fans whilst making their way to scrutineering, and they replied they didn’t mind at all. I think they actually enjoyed the attention. They did say the pitwalk in Hungary was much worse though because organisers in Budapest cram as many people into the pitlane as possible and it is very difficult to move around.
The Ferrari pits were understandably the most popular and I was lucky to get there early enough before the crowd turned into a mob. The place went crazy when Felipe Massa’s car was taken down to the FIA garage and I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t get anywhere near it. That wasn’t a problem though because I waited patiently outside the scrutineering bay for twenty minutes and had the chance to get up close and personal when the red machine came back out.
It isn’t every day that you get to touch a Ferrari in the pits at Monza!
I also spent a fair bit of time watching the Honda mechanics practicing their pitstops. I was standing right behind the left rear jackman and noticed with some concern that he messed up every single stop. They must have gone through the motions six or seven times whilst I was there and the poor guy in front of me didn’t get a single one of them right. His colleagues didn’t seem to mind too much and actually laughed about it.
The Honda guys were in a really good mood all afternoon and even amused themselves by stuffing the radiators of Buttons car with potato chips. These were gleefully consumed by the mechanic who had the plumb job of sitting behind the wheel.
The Ferrari guys showed no emotion during their pitstop practice and maybe because of this they got every single one of them perfect. This may explain why Ferrari are fighting for the World Championship and Honda are not.
Leaving the circuit was difficult on the Thursday so I ended up walking ninety minutes back to Monza railway station. I wasn’t going to wait around in the middle of nowhere for a bus that I had little faith in. At least I knew that getting to the circuit on Friday would be easy thanks to the shuttle bus.
I was wrong.
It took a long time to work out where the shuttle bus departed, but more frustrating was that my bus turned into a shuttle for the driver’s girlfriend. He dropped her home just out of town before turning around into the peak hour traffic for a seemingly endless drive to the Parco Di Monza. Once again, it probably would have been quicker to walk.
Bizarrely, the shuttle buses to the Grand Prix don’t drop you off at the circuit but in the middle of the surrounding parkland. This is not particularly helpful. Even once you get off the bus you still have a massive walk to reach the circuit gates and that’s assuming you know how to find them through the trees. Why the bus couldn’t just go that little bit further and save everyone the trouble was a mystery to me.
It was starting to rain when I arrived at the circuit so my thoughts quickly changed from crazy busses to where I should watch the F1 cars in action for the first Friday practice session. I really wanted to see the drivers struggle in the wet so I thought I would try one of Monza’s ‘normal’ corners. I had already decided to watch qualifying at the fearsome Parabolica so I made my way to the famous Lesmo bends.
I was disappointed to learn there is no spectator access around the outside of the Lesmo corners. In fact, apart from the back and front straights there is no spectator access around the outside of the circuit at all. The only way I was going to get a decent view of the corner was to sit on the inside.
The apex of Lesmo Two was filled with medical facilities and didn’t offer much of a view, so I parked myself on the inside of Lesmo One with a small group of Ferrari faithful. I didn’t expect to stay there long but it was such a great place to watch the cars in flight that I was there for most of the first session. You could easily tell the drivers that were struggling with understeer (Coulthard) and those with oversteer (Trulli). As the cars popped into sight through the tress I had a great view over the driver’s right shoulder so it was a fantastic spot to see them working the wheel. Sensational.
More than anything else it was just great to be watching Formula One cars in the flesh again. It is something that I will never get tired of.
Eventually I made my way around the circuit a little and took up the view from the second chicane. By this stage the light rain was starting to get heavy and it was especially interesting to see who was able to accelerate fastest down the short straight. The big winner was Sebastian Bourdais who was the only driver smooth enough to start putting the power down before straightening up his car. The other drivers had to wait until all four wheels pointed in the same direction before touching the loud pedal. This was especially difficult for Nelson Piquet who rarely had all four wheels pointing in the same direction.
Anyone can take a grandstand seat on the Friday at Monza so I was standing at the top of the biggest stand on the exit of the chicane. The rain started to get really heavy, and when my fear of lighting became real I started looking for some shelter. My timing was impeccable because the moment I left the stand one of the biggest storms I’ve ever seen began in earnest. The rain was beyond torrential and was pounding into the ground like bullets. Even the tall thick trees of Monza’s forest provided little protection. It was the sort of weather that you would usually stay at home in bed to avoid.
The press later called the storm a Monzoon.
I was lucky to find a small hot dog caravan with an awning that I was able to use for shelter. A number of other fans who had also failed to pack an umbrella had the same idea, so we all bought beers and sandwiches and huddled under the awning waiting for the downpour to ease off. We were waiting for quite some time.
The session was red flagged because the circuit was flooded. The same could be said of my clothes and backpack.
Before the second practice session started I had made my way to the Ascari chicane via an overpriced umbrella stand, and soaked up what turned out to be a warm and sunny afternoon.
I sat in a grandstand on the entry to the chicane because it offered better views than those on the exit. I could see the cars squirm under braking and then jink left right left before making their way down the back straight.
Interestingly, Mark Webber was one of the quickest drivers entering the Ascari chicane although he paid the price for this by getting it wrong a few times under braking. Nico Rosberg was also pretty quick but the biggest cheer was always reserved for the Ferraris.
About halfway through the session I started making my way up the long straight that leads towards the Lesmo bends and I think that was one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done.
The straight is flanked by large earth banks so you can get a decent view of the cars over the fencing, and the abundance of tall trees cast beautiful shadows over the cars as they scream by.
If you ever need a reminder of just how loud an F1 car actually is, try standing a few metres away from it as it wails past at 320kph. My goodness that is loud – and fast. The close proximity of the trees really enhanced the sensation of speed.
It was a shame the afternoon’s action had to end.
The heavy rain that morning had flooded the dirt tracks through the forest rendering some of them unpassable. The place was covered in mud and any small ditch had turned into a massive puddle. One of the access tunnels under the old banking had several inches of water pooled in the bottom of it, but with no other option I had to wade my way through. This was a great amusement to the large groups of drunken Ferrari fans that that waited patiently at either end of the tunnel for people like me to splash by. They cheered, clapped, and counted us through the water, amid much laughter, and really put a smile on everyone’s face when the weather was trying to do otherwise.
It was a great reminder of the Italian’s enthusiasm for having fun, despite the rain, and that great atmosphere would continue to create a special weekend on the Saturday and Sunday.
Check out the Bite Point next week for Part 2