Monza holds the record for hosting the most Formula 1 World Championship races, with this year’s edition the 75th grand prix to be held at the “Temple of Speed.” Only in 1980 was the Italian Grand Prix held elsewhere – at Imola, while Monza was upgraded – and with top 10s in each of his last two visits with Williams, your guide to the high-speed 3.6-mile track is Williams racer Alex Albon.

“I first came to Monza in 2012 and I’ve probably raced here every year since, apart from 2021. So, a fair bit. My first ever race in single-seaters was at Monza. I had the biggest crash of my life. My biggest crash in motorsports was the first race of my single-seater career.

“Coming out of Ascari I clipped the back of another car, rear wheel. And then I basically did a backwards somersault. Landed on my nose, and then landed and rolled about four or five times more. So, a good start to my career!

“It’s changed a little bit since then, but more in the way they resurfaced it last year. And they also have changed Parabolica a fair bit. It obviously went to a point where it had a full run-off area. And now it’s kind of come in between a little bit.

“I would say I probably most liked it when I first drove it. When it was kind of the old school curbs, no run-off areas and whatnot.

“Braking points are really difficult. One of the weird things about this track is the tire compounds are soft, you run very low rear wing, very low downforce, and it’s a hot track generally. So, even though there’s only seven proper corners, the lap time and getting the tires to last the lap is really difficult.

“The deg here is massive. It’s all straights, you’d think the tires would be cool, but they’re not. So, it is a challenge. The balance between riding the curbs well. And focusing on downforce to running a low and stiff car or a bit higher and softer car. The trade-off is quite important.

“Unfortunately, that’s become less of a thing once they resurfaced it. Nowadays, the cars are running a bit stiffer and a bit lower than they were a couple of years ago. It’s easier in that sense.

“It feels strange coming here running low downforce compared to other tracks. You always come into FP1 here and complain, ‘The car is terrible. No grip.’ And then you just adjust to it as the weekend goes on.

“It’s strange. For example, DRS barely does anything around this track. I think you gain a tenth to Turn 1 when you use DRS to when you don’t. There are weird quirks around the track.

“From an engineering setup perspective, it’s not easy. You have low-speed corners and then everything else is a fourth- or a fifth-gear corner. It’s not even low and medium. You’ve got low speed and then you’ve got medium/high speed.

“You are almost always balancing the two. You can’t have a car that’s just good in low speed and high speed. You have to make a trade in the middle somewhere. You do that a lot through competitor analysis and looking at where your rivals are. Giving up a little bit here for a little bit there.

The combination of high-and low-speed sections makes setup a compromise at Monza. Lars Baron/Getty Images

“You basically want a lot of front end for Turn 1 and 2, and Turn 4 and 5, because they’re direction-change corners. In these low-speed chicanes, you need the front to turn it. Carry the minimum speed and get straight on exit.

“When you look at Parabolica or the Lesmos, it’s good to have stability in these long, combined corners. You want to carry the minimum speed and get on throttle and not energize the rear too much. Then you’re fighting – it kind of feels like you’re spinning plates a little bit, trying to get both.

“In terms of a driving track, I think it’s actually a bit overrated in that sense. Because it’s so stop and start, it’s not got the flow of a Spa or Zandvoort that we’ve just come from.

“There’s a lot of thinking time in between straights, which is interesting. It’s a challenge in itself because it’s a bit like golf. You can overthink it, underthink it, all these kind of things. I just think there’s better tracks out there!”

AT A GLANCE
Race distance: 53 laps/190.8 miles
2024 pole time: 1m19.327s (Lando Norris, McLaren-Mercedes)
2024 winner: Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
Pirelli tire allotment: There is no change in compounds compared to last year, when the track had just been resurfaced for the Italian Grand Prix at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza. The C3 is the Hard, the C4 Medium and the C5 Soft. Twelve months on, inevitably the surface will have aged, but it is unlikely to have any significant effect on the range of possible strategies at this circuit, where cars run in the lowest aerodynamic downforce configuration of the season.

It is likely that the most popular choices for the race itself will be the Hard and Medium. One can assume that the level of graining will be lower than last year as the track will now be bedded in. Time lost in the pit lane for a tire change is among the longest of the season, so teams will try and run as long a stint as possible, keeping degradation under control, with the aim of only changing tires once.

PIRELLI ITALIAN GRAND PRIX WEEKEND SCHEDULE (all times ET):

Friday, September 5

7:25am – 8:30am – First Practice, ESPNU

10:55am – 12:00pm – Second Practice, ESPN2

Saturday, September 6

6:25am – 7:30am – Third Practice, ESPN2

9:55am – 11:00am – Qualifying, ESPN2

Sunday, September 7

8:55am – 11:00am – Italian Grand Prix (53 laps or 120 minutes), ESPN2