All info you need to see before the 2024 Italian Grand Prix starts

The 2024 Formula 1 season is getting hot and McLaren seems to have usurped Red Bull at the top of the pecking order. Fresh off his dominant win in the Netherlands, Lando Norris will now try to string a few race wins together, something unprecedented for his F1 career.

Will Red Bull End Winless Streak Amid McLaren's Rising Threat

The 2024 Italian Grand Prix in Monza is coming up, and it could be a good place for Red Bull to return to winning ways and cut a five-race winless streak. The World Championships (Drivers' and Constructors') looked comfortable for Red Bull early on, as the team won seven of the first 10 races. However, McLaren's form has started to look threatening for Red Bull in both title fights.

Verstappen has 295 points in the WDC, 70 ahead of Norris, but if the scenes from Zandvoort are replicated in many more races, Norris could threaten Verstappen near the end of the campaign. The race at Monza will be the 16th round of the 24-race 2024 Formula 1 season, so there are lots of points available, including three Sprint Races.

Max Verstappen congratulates Lando Norris after the 2024 F1 Grand Prix of the Netherlands

In the WCC, Red Bull (434 points with Verstappen and Sergio Pérez) has a 30-point gap over McLaren (404 points with Norris and Oscar Piastri). The Scuderia Ferrari (Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz) is third with 370 points, followed by Mercedes (Sir Lewis Hamilton and George Russell) with 276 points.

With Norris' win in the Netherlands, McLaren halted a three-win streak from Verstappen and Red Bull at Zandvoort. In that regard, McLaren will look to do the same at Monza, where Red Bull and the Dutch driver have won the last two events, including a 1-2 in 2023.

A year has changed a lot in Red Bull's F1 journey. Last year's win at Monza was a record 15th consecutive victory for the Austrian team, and a 10th straight win for Verstappen, another record. However, that's not the case this year. At Monza, Red Bull will try to stop its run of five races without a win, the worst for the Austrian team since 2020.

2024 Italian GP Facts & Figures

The 2024 Italian Grand Prix will be the 75th running of the event under the FIA World Championship of Drivers. The Scuderia Ferrari is the most successful team with 19 victories in front of their devoted Tifosi.

The race has been part of every season of the World Championship since its inception in 1950 and is a genuinely iconic date in every year’s calendar.

The first winner of the Italian round of the World Championship was Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina, who won his home race in 1950 in his Alfetta and also secured his World Championship, which made him F1’s first champion in history and the only one to date to win the title at his home race.

Ferrari’s first success at Monza during the World Championship occurred in 1951, with Alberto Ascari winning the event, a feat which he would replicate during his title-winning campaign in 1952.

Then, Juan Manuel Fangio won three straight races with Maserati and Mercedes between 1953 and 1955, becoming the first to win three Italian GPs on the trot, which has not been replicated yet.

Fangio was crowned champion in the 1956 event, achieving his fourth title and doing so with Ferrari. Jack Brabham, too, sealed one of his titles in Italy in the 1960 event, which was boycotted by the British teams as a protest against the Monza banking.

The race was constantly the defining moment of many World Championships:

Phil Hill sealed his title in 1961 at Monza and behind the wheel of a Ferrari too. Still, the race was marred by the tragic accident in which Ferrari driver and title contender Wolfgang von Trips lost his life, with 15 spectators killed in one of the saddest days of Formula 1 racing.

Jim Clark also achieved his first title in Italy in 1963, while Brabham earned his third and final championship in 1966. Furthermore, Sir Jackie Stewart closed out his championship quest in 1969 in the Italian round, but the 1970 posthumous World Champion Jochen Rindt lost his life in the Italian event in 1970.

The 1971 event saw the closest finish in the history of the sport between first and second, with Peter Gethin (BRM) beating Ronnie Peterson’s March (Peterson also lost his life as a result of a crash in Italy in 1978) by 0.01 seconds and a little more than six-tenths covered the top five.

In turn, Emerson Fittipaldi celebrated his first World Championship in Italy in 1972 and Stewart did the same with his third and last championship the following year. Another driver who also took the biggest prize in motor racing in Italy while driving for Ferrari was the legendary Niki Lauda in 1975. Then, in 1978, Mario Andretti achieved his main goal for Lotus on the track where his passion for motor racing began as a child watching Alberto Ascari in the 1950s.

Ultimately, Jody Scheckter followed in Lauda’s footsteps in 1979, winning the title in Italy for Ferrari in the last time a driver sealed a championship at the Italian Grand Prix.

The most successful drivers in the Italian Grand Prix are Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton, with five wins each, followed by three-time champion Nelson Piquet with four. Piquet won the only Italian Grand Prix in history not to be held at Monza, as he dominated the 1980 event at Imola.

In the 2020 event, without any spectators, the race was a surprising one, with Frenchman Pierre Gasly becoming a Grand Prix winner after holding off Carlos Sainz’s McLaren in the final laps and taking advantage of a red-flag period and an off weekend by elite teams (Mercedes due to their usual strategic mistakes and Red Bull due to lack of pace).

Daniel Ricciardo gave McLaren its first win since the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix in the 2021 Italian Grand Prix. The Australian led a 1-2 for the Woking-based team, ahead of his teammate Lando Norris.

Ricciardo won the race after starting from P2 and passing Red Bull’s Max Verstappen at the start and showing great pace. He was also helped by Verstappen crashing with Lewis Hamilton later in the race, with the two title challengers retiring from the race. Still, the Australian had a big chance of winning the race even with the Dutchman and the seven-time champion staying on the track, as his pace was solid.

Verstappen beat Leclerc's Ferrari in 2022 after starting from seventh place due to a five-place grid penalty due to exceeding power unit parts, while Leclerc had qualified in Pole Position. The race finished behind the Safety Car, as there weren't enough laps to allow a green-flag finish after the SC period, which is quite common with late crashes in a Grand Prix. The Dutchman won again in 2023, establishing a new record for consecutive wins with his 10th triumph in a row (and Red Bull's 15th consecutive win - another record).

Autodromo Nazionale di Monza Track Info

The Temple of Speed will always be known for its long straights and being the most demanding track in terms of power. Though it offers simplistic setup configurations for the track, low-downforce settings for the cars mean they, occasionally, look gorgeously unstable around the 5.793 km track. For the 2024 race, the track has been completely resurfaced.

Since 1950, the circuit has provided seven different layouts, most keeping the same ‘boomerang’ layout we see now, though some changes have been made to adhere to safety measures.

The first layout had eight corners, but only four demanded hard braking. In 1955, the Parabolica was added instead of the two-corner Curva di Vedano, and the oval speed ring was added, bringing in the infamous and intimidating banking.

This layout was scrapped after the 1961 event, in which Wolfgang von Trips and 15 spectators tragically died. Four races were completed in the longer version of the track (1955, 1956, 1960, and 1961).

The shortened track kept the high-speed nature, but safety concerns were huge due to the unbelievably increasing speeds, which enforced two chicanes for the track, one in the middle of the long straight, the Variante del Rettifilo, and the Variante Ascari, added instead of the Curva del Vialone, where Alberto Ascari had died in 1955.

The Variante Ascari and the Variante del Rettifilo were changed in 1974 and 1976, respectively, and a chicane was also added to the Variante Della Roggia in 1976. Since 1976, the changes have been minor, with a new profile for the Curva Biassono and the second Lesmo in 1994 and the Variante del Rettifilo being changed from a double chicane to a simpler right-left turn.

The current layout records are the following:

Outright record: 1:18,887 min by Lewis Hamilton in 2020, driving the Mercedes W11 at an average speed of 264.363 km/h (Fastest Lap of all time in terms of average speed).

Fastest Lap during a race: 1:21,046 min by Rubens Barrichello in 2004, driving the Ferrari F2004 at an average speed of 257.321 km/h.

2024 Italian Grand Prix - Tyres

The dry tyres for the 2024 Italian Grand Prix will be the C3 as P Zero White hard, C4 as P Zero Yellow Medium, and C5 as P Zero Red soft.

A press release from Pirelli detailed the brand's view of the tyres for the upcoming weekend: "...from a purely technical point of view, [the] most important change for this year’s Italian Grand Prix concerns the asphalt. The circuit has embarked on a process of renovation and modernisation of its facility, aimed at ensuring its future and part of the first phase of this work has been the complete resurfacing of the entire track.

In addition, some of the underpasses have been changed: the one at Santa Maria delle Selve and the two on the straight between the Ascari chicane and the Parabolica, along with building a brand new one linking the Vedano entrance to the Parabolica, aimed at keeping pedestrians and vehicles apart. In addition, the circuit’s water collection and drainage systems have been refurbished.

The work involved a crew of 240 and 92 vehicles. Once it was completed, in early August a team of Pirelli engineers carried out an inspection of the new surface, sharing the data with the FIA and the teams, in preparation for the final European round of the Formula 1 season.

As is usually the case with newly-laid asphalt, the surface is smoother than its predecessor and darker in colour. This latter factor will have an impact on track temperature, which if the sun is shining could see it get hotter than in the past, even reaching significant highs of over 50 °C.

In theory, the new surface should offer more grip, which will impact tyre performance and their operating temperature range. It is highly likely that track evolution will be very high over the course of the weekend, as the various categories racing at this event rack up the laps.

At Monza, cars usually run in the lowest aerodynamic configuration of the season to reduce drag, in order to favour top speed. Stability under braking and traction coming out of the two chicanes are the factors that most test the tyres and, in addition, the lateral loads in the fast corners, such as the Parabolica, now named in honour of Michele Alboreto and the Curva Grande, should not be underestimated.

This is a track where the time needed for a pit stop is one of the longest of the year so, on paper, a one-stop strategy is quickest. In free practice, it will be important to evaluate what effect the new surface might have on tyre behaviour over a long run, both in terms of performance and of degradation.

Last year, the race was very linear, with the two hardest compounds being the clear choice. 17 of the 20 drivers chose to start on the C4, while only three – Hamilton, Bottas and Magnussen – preferred the C3. 14 drivers pitted just the once, six pitted twice, although in Piastri’s case that was down to the need to change the front wing after a collision with Hamilton.

The remaining five - Gasly, Zhou, Lawson, Hulkenberg e Magnussen – adopted this strategy because the drop in performance from the tyres was already too high in the first stint.

The Italian Grand Prix has been a permanent fixture on the Formula 1 World Championship calendar since its inception, making this year’s event the 75th edition."

The minimum starting pressures for the dry tyres will be 25.5 PSI (front) and 23.5 PSI (rear).

2024 Italian Grand Prix Weather Forecast

Friday, Aug 30th - FP1 & FP2
Conditions: Sunny and hot
Max. temperature: 35°C
Chance of rain: 0%

Saturday, Aug 31st - FP3 & Qualifying
Conditions: Partly sunny and hot
Max. temperature: 34°C
Chance of rain: 1%

Sunday, Sep 1st - Race
Conditions: Mostly cloudy and hot
Max. temperature: 34°C
Chance of rain: 25%

Who will be on the 2024 Italian Grand Prix Podium?

2023 Italian F1 Podium: 1. Max Verstappen, 2. Sergio Perez and 3. Carlos Sainz the 2024 F1 Grand Prix of Italy

McLaren's victories in 2024 have come in Miami, Hungary, and the Netherlands. If the team manages to perform at a similar level to the previous weekend, then Red Bull should be more than worried about both championships.

Clearly, Verstappen's advantage over Norris (70 points) still looks solid with nine races to go, but the margin of error will shorten each time the Dutchman isn't able to stop Norris from winning. In fact, Red Bull would benefit quite a lot from teams like Mercedes and Ferrari competing for wins, although it might not be the safest bet going forward.

Oddsmakers have Norris as the early favorite to win the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, but Verstappen remains a contender at the very least. Can Ferrari or Mercedes step up their game and compete for a victory? It most likely will depend on McLaren's pace. If it looks like the Zandvoort event, we could see a 1-2 from the Woking-based team.

McLaren and Red Bull, this year's favorites for the race at Monza, have won the last three events at the place. McLaren had a 1-2 with Daniel Ricciardo leading Norris home in 2021, while Red Bull won the last two with Verstappen.

The prediction for the top three of the 2024 Italian Grand Prix is 1. Max Verstappen, 2. Lando Norris, 3. Oscar Piastri.

✅ Check out more posts with related topics: