Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Racing Circuit

The Autodromo Nazionale Monza sits within the Royal Park of Monza, about 15 kilometres north-northeast of Milan in northern Italy. Built at a feverish pace in just 110 days, it was inaugurated in September 1922, making it one of the oldest purpose-built motor racing facilities in the world and earning its enduring nickname, the Temple of Speed. The original complex combined a road course with a high-speed banked oval, and the steeply banked loop was rebuilt in 1955 on concrete pillars before being abandoned after the fatal 1961 accident that killed Wolfgang von Trips and a number of spectators near the Parabolica. The track's reputation for outright speed, born of its long straights and minimal cornering, led to the addition of chicanes from 1972 onwards to slow the cars, including the Ascari chicane named for Alberto Ascari, who died at the Vialone curve in 1955. Famous corners include the fast Curva Grande, the two Lesmo bends, the Variante Ascari chicane sequence, and the long, sweeping Parabolica that leads onto the main straight. Monza has hosted the Formula One Italian Grand Prix every year since the world championship began in 1950, save for 1980, making it a fixture of the calendar. It has also staged sportscar and motorcycle racing, though the latter was marred by the tragic 1973 deaths of Jarno Saarinen and Renzo Pasolini at the Curva Grande. The crumbling oval banking still stands within the park as an evocative relic of the circuit's early decades. Today Monza remains beloved for its history, its passionate tifosi, and the slipstreaming battles its high-speed layout produces.

Operated by: Automobile Club d'Italia (ACI)