In Maranello, no one has a more complete scrapbook than Piero Ferrari. The son of the Founder and currently the company Vice President is the conduit through which passes almost the entire history of the strongest brand in the world. It’s normal therefore that many pages of this album have links to Monza and the Italian Grand Prix.

“The Monza round has always been special for us,” he recounts. “I well remember that my father was stringent about it and a few weeks before the race, he would send everyone in the Gestione Sportiva a note informing them that all leave was ‘suspended until after the Italian Grand Prix.’ He liked everything about Monza, especially the speed of the cars and the passion of the crowds. Everything had to be prepared down to the smallest detail and I believe that even today, each one of us experiences the same emotions when this Grand Prix approaches.

“There are also tragic memories linked to Monza, some of which I experienced third hand, as I was still a baby, such as the death of Alberto Ascari, who was the victim of an accident during private testing on 26th May 1955: “My father never wanted to go into the details, but I could tell he was deeply affected by this tragedy. He already felt bad when Ascari left the team to move to Lancia and then came the accident, besides which, he was driving a Ferrari almost by accident, because it was the car that Castellotti should have been using in a Sports Car race the following week. There were no eye witness accounts of the accident and my father never knew what really happened.”


Even Piero Ferrari’s first actual visit to Monza was marked by a tragic event: “It was 1961 and I was in the main grandstand to watch the race. At the end, I was happy because Phil Hill had won and, because of that, he took the world title. Everyone around me was celebrating because we didn’t know what had happened at the start of the race at the Parabolica, when Von Trips flew off the track and into the crowd, resulting in his death and further carnage. You have to remember that at the time, there were no giant screens like we have today, so you never saw anything that went on at other points on the track. I left the grandstand happy with the race result, but that feeling vanished once on the road home, when I learned from the car radio what had happened.”

The Vice President has particularly fond memories of three wins, two of them scored by the same driver, Clay Regazzoni. “The first dates back to 1970, in the days when winning at Monza was all about slipstreaming: there were some very close fights all race long, so that on this occasion there were no less than six drivers who took turns in the lead. Clay gradually managed to shrug off all his rivals to win in the end, beating Stewart. The second, five years later, saw Clay win once again, this time from Fittipaldi and Lauda. It was the day that Niki took the World Championship title: it hadn’t happened for many years and it was fantastic to get it back actually at Monza, in front of the home crowd.”

The third victory just has to be the one in 1988, with a magnificent one-two for Gerhard Berger and Michele Alboreto, less than a month after the death of the Founder. “It was almost like a cosmic coincidence. We arrived better prepared than ever for this race, knowing it was our only chance to do well in a season dominated by McLaren: it was a case of all or nothing, we told ourselves before heading for Monza. We gave it our all and it went well, in fact very well. We had a little bit of luck, in circumstances that made one believe there was someone up there looking over the Park, or at least it’s nice to think that was the case!”

Of all those he knew, two drivers made their mark on Piero Ferrari and strangely enough, both of them won the world championship here at Monza. “One is Niki, an amazing driver, with whom I had and still have, a very warm relationship that has withstood the test of time. The other is Jody Scheckter, a man who always has his feet on the ground. When he won the title, he understood that Formula 1 was no longer the right place for him and, one year later, he retired and concentrated on his business interests: I’ve also maintained a good relationship with him.”