Italian Grand Prix

Full throttle at the Temple of SpeedFull throttle at the Temple of Speed

2026 SEASON

Enter the Temple of Speed

Monza. One of the fastest circuits on the F1 calendar and one of the most historic. Minimal downforce, blistering speeds, close racing, and a fervent atmosphere created by the passionate tifosi.

Session Times

FP1

FP2

FP3

Quali

Race

Toggle below to highlight parts of the track.

Sectors
Turns
DRS

Ascari Chicane is very difficult. It's all about the entry and braking very late. The trick is to brake late but keep momentum.

Pedro de la Rosa – Team Representative

Circuit length (km)
5.793
Number of corners
11
Race distance (km)
306.720

NEED TO KNOW: ITALIAN GP

The essential Monza travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Mastering Monza

The magic of racing at Monza

Ultimate Italian Grand Prix facts

The essential Monza travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

The Italian Grand Prix is F1's great immovable object. Since the inception of the World Championship in 1950, it's occupied the same weekend at the start of September – give or take a couple of days. While the leaves may be starting to turn in more northerly latitudes, in Monza there's very much a feeling of late summer: it's a nice time of year to wander the streets with an ice cream – or sit on a terrace with a glass of Barolo.

Look north from the pitlane at Monza and, on a clear day, the Alps loom in the distance, in several places marking the border between Italy and Switzerland – and nestled in the foothills are the deep blue glacial lakes of Como, Maggiore and Lugano. Since Roman times, the well-to-do have been coming here to escape the humidity of the plains. It's a little more accessible now, with the train from Monza taking 29 minutes to Como, at the southern tip of its eponymous lake's western leg. The end of summer is a great time to tour the villas, villages and ornamental gardens that fringe the lakes, and a variety of cruises crisscross them – though there's something to be said for hiring a speedboat and acting like James Bond on his day off.

For those who want to go a bit further north, the Bernina Red Train takes a panoramic tour over into Switzerland, reaching the highest point accessible by train in Europe, featuring spectacular views, and the sort of cliff-hanging railway engineering bravado that the Swiss use to terrify tourists. You'll need a strong coffee and a pastry in St Moritz to recover.

If your interests are a little more urban, then Monza, while a city in its own right, has become in essence a suburb of Milan. It is, of course, a sightseeing delight, with the Duomo, La Scala, da Vinci's The Last Supper and the Quadrilatero della moda and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II for those in need of a high-fashion hit. And if you really, really like cars, take on a side quest to Turin for the Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile. The cars are great, but the building is fantastic.

Mastering Monza

Monza's nickname is well-deserved – but The Temple of Speed is a little more subtle than its reputation would have you believe. With cars set up in a low-drag configuration featuring their characteristic ultra-skinny rear wings, the speed trap at Monza records some of the fastest end-of-straight speeds in F1… but it's often the case that speed onto the straights is the decisive factor in both attack and defence. Getting off the corners and out of the chicanes well provides an advantage all the way down the straight, which is often what wins the day, and thus presents the paradox that the slowest cars at end-of-straight are often race winners.

And so, the Italian Grand Prix really isn't a race to the bottom: low downforce certainly, but with practical considerations as well. With only Monza, Las Vegas and possibly Baku suiting the ultra-low downforce rear wing, not every team will commit the resources to making a suite of them; and not every team that builds them will choose to race them here, preferring instead to run in their Spa-Francorchamps spec to have a little more bite out of Parabolica, the Lesmos and Ascari.

While there are only six braking points around the circuit, they include some of the hardest braking events of the season, thanks to the combination of very high speeds and very tight chicanes. It's an arduous workout for the drivers' left foot – but the combination of heavy braking and low downforce also tends to destabilise the cars. 2024 wasn't quite as bad as in previous years, with track resurfacing smoothing out many of the bumps… but it's still a circuit where it's very easy to miss a braking point or hit a kerb the wrong way and end up in trouble.

The other factor to consider with the high speeds is that the risk of illegality increases from excessive plank and skid wear, with the cars at 360km/h smashing into the surface with greater regularity. Naturally, teams want to get the cars as low and as stiff as possible, but there are compromises to be made in setup for the first two chicanes, Rettifilo – oxymoronically, the 'straight' chicane – and Roggia. There are kerbs to ride, and a requirement to have good traction on the exits, which in turn require a more compliant setup. Not everyone reaches the same conclusions about the best direction to take.

The magic of racing at Monza

It's surprising just how big the royal park at Monza really is. There's a lot going on, with the racetrack occupying the north-western quadrant, but elsewhere there's an international class golf course, a working farm, an international school, several historic buildings, fine dining and lots of woodland… all of which you see trying to find the fabled – and likely fictitious – easy way out in the evening. Everyone pays a visit to see the concrete banking of the old circuit – but that's about it for the history tour, there's more than enough racing to keep everyone occupied.

While Monza doesn't have many corners, they're all action zones. The first chicane tends to see the bulk of the overtaking, but there's a class system in place: cars that are closer on performance often carryover their battles to the second chicane, with the car forced to defend into the first chicane being compromised on exit. It's heart-in-the-mouth stuff through the Curva Grande with very little space before the tight, heavy braking zone for Roggia.

The third chicane – Ascari – is different in character. It's much quicker and rarely an overtaking spot, but it's a fabulous place to see F1 cars threading the eye of a needle at high-speed: the left-right-left flick has a very narrow racing line, and anyone a fraction off that line can wind up in trouble.

Parabolica is another corner more likely to see cars kicking-up dust than jostling for position. It's a good place to get a full appreciation for how fast an F1 car can go around a corner – but really, watching from here, like the grandstands opposite the pit lane, is all about soaking up the atmosphere. Believe the hype, it is genuinely special – and you don't have to be wearing red to enjoy it.

Ultimate Italian Grand Prix facts

1 | The Italian Grand Prix is one of only two races ever-present on the Formula One World Championship calendar, since its inception in 1950. The other is the British Grand Prix.

2 | Monza has hosted more Formula One World Championship races than any other circuit. 75 of the 76 Italian Grands Prix have been held here, the odd one out being the race in 1980, which went to Imola. The official line is that safety improvements were being made here… though there may have been some politics as well.

3 | Lance had his first front row start here, back in 2017. He also appeared on Monza's famed podium spanning out towards the start-finish straight, when finishing third in 2020.

4 | Fernando is a double-winner at Monza, taking victory in 2007 for McLaren and 2010 for Ferrari – no prizes for guessing which one was more popular.

5 | The 1965 Italian Grand Prix has the most recorded changes of leader. In a slipstreaming race, P1 changed hands 41 times.

6 | The 1971 race is probably the all-time closest finish. The first five cars over the line were covered by 0.61 seconds. Peter Gethin beat Ronnie Peterson by 0.01s. Timing was only recorded to two decimal places in ’71. The 2002 US Grand Prix had a Ferrari formation finish recorded at 0.011s.

7 | This is the home of speed records. Michael Schumacher in 2003 has the highest average race speed, completing the race at 247.586km/h; Rubens Barrichello in the same race has the highest average speed for a fastest lap at 257.321k/h, while Lewis Hamilton in 2021 did the fastest lap of a racetrack during Qualifying, at 264.362km/h.