1924 Italian Grand Prix

The Autodromo di Milano in its driven version.

An Alfa Romeo P2 in its original condition, here at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2009. In 1924 Alfa Romeo celebrated a four-fold victory with the P2 at the Italian Grand Prix

The 4th Italian Grand Prix took place on October 19, 1924 at the Autodromo di Milano in Monza . The race was held over 80 laps of 10.0 km, which corresponded to the minimum distance for Grand Prix races of 800.0 km specified in the International Grand Prix Formula . Works teams with racing cars with a capacity of up to 2 liters and a minimum weight of 650 kg were eligible to participate .

The winner was Antonio Ascari in an Alfa Romeo P2 .

run

The original date for the Italian Grand Prix was September 7, but after both Fiat (due to injuries to drivers Bordino and Salamano ) and Mercedes withdrew their cars during practice, the race was postponed to October 19. Nevertheless, Fiat stayed out of the race after company owner Giovanni Agnelli had in the meantime ordered the withdrawal as a consequence of the disappointing performance in the French Grand Prix and the permanent drop in staff to other manufacturers. The main annoyance was in particular the change of the two engineers Vittorio Jano and Gioacchino Colombo to Alfa Romeo , who promptly put an absolute winner on the wheels with the supercharged Alfa Romeo P2. The Milan plant sent four cars with Antonio Ascari, Giuseppe Campari , Louis Wagner and Ferdinando Minoia as drivers for his home race.

With Delage and Bugatti , the two leading French teams once again decided not to travel to Italy, but Germany was represented in a Grand Prix race for the first time after the First World War with the traditional Mercedes brand. With the Mercedes M218, Ferdinand Porsche had also developed a turbocharged eight-cylinder in-line engine that even surpassed the Alfa Romeo in terms of engine performance and speed stability . On the other hand, his endeavors to concentrate the vehicle mass within the wheelbase as far as possible in chassis construction proved to be problematic. Even after a long development period - participation in the race was only possible due to the postponement - the driving behavior was still not optimal. The Mercedes drivers were Christian Werner , Alfred Neubauer , Giulio Masetti and Louis Zborowski . The field of 12 participants was finally filled by two cars each from Chiribiri and two cars from the Swiss engine manufacturer Schmid , the latter with valveless six-cylinders of our own design, which had been installed in Rolland-Pilain chassis from the previous year. Without supercharging, neither manufacturer could play a role in the race.

After the start, for which the positions had been drawn as usual, Ascari immediately took the lead in an Alfa Romeo, which he did not relinquish until the end of the race. Mercedes driver Masetti had lined up behind him, but was gradually overtaken by the three other Alfa Romeos before he even had to get out with an empty tank in the middle of the race. A short time later, the race for Mercedes was finally a tragedy because Zborowski, while trying to make good ground on the Alfa Romeos, went off the track because of the poor roadholding of his car in the Lesmo curve and had a fatal accident when hitting a tree. Out of respect for the casualty, Mercedes then withdrew the two remaining Werner and Neubauer cars from the race a little later, so that Alfa Romeo achieved an absolutely safe four-fold victory for Ascari, Wagner, Cesare Pastore  - who in the meantime replaced Campari at the wheel as a substitute driver had - and Minoia came. The winner's lead over Jules Goux on the Schmid, the first driver from another make, was an unbelievable 68 minutes - more than has ever been achieved in a Grand Prix race before or since. With Goux's stable mate Giulio Foresti and a chiribiri, two cars had to do their laps alone for another 30 minutes - the field was often not yet waved when the winner crossed the finish line, but the participants had to complete the full number of laps to be scored .

Results

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
SA Ital. Ing.Nicola Romeo	01	Antonio Ascari	Alfa Romeo P2 8C / 2000	Alfa Romeo 2.0L I8 compressor	P
	05	Giuseppe Campari Cesare Pastore
	09	Louis Wagner
	11	Ferdinando Minoia
Daimler Motor Company	02	Christian Werner	Mercedes 2-liter 8-cylinder racing car	Mercedes M218 2.0L I8 compressor	C.
	06th	Alfred Neubauer
	10	Giulio Masetti
	12	Louis Zborowski
Schmid	03	Jules Goux	Rolland-Pilain A22 Grand Prix	Schmid 2.0L I6	M.
	07th	Giulio Foresti
Fabbrica Torinese Velivoli Chiribiri & C.	04th	Alete Marconcini	Chiribiri 12/16
	08th	Stefano Crespi

Race result

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	Antonio Ascari	Alfa Romeo	80	2	5:02:05 h	1	3: 43.6 min
02	Louis Wagner	Alfa Romeo	80	2	+ 16: 00.0 min	9
03	Giuseppe Campari Cesare Pastore	Alfa Romeo	80	2	+ 19: 54.0 min	5
04th	Ferdinando Minoia	Alfa Romeo	80	2	+ 20: 38.0 min	11
05	Jules Goux	Rolland Pilain	80	2	+ 1: 08: 17.0 h	3
06th	Giulio Foresti	Rolland Pilain	80	2	+ 1: 29: 58.0 h	7th
07th	Stefano Crespi	Chiribiri	70		+ 10 rounds	8th
-	Christian Werner	Mercedes	68		DNF	2		withdrawn
-	Alfred Neubauer	Mercedes	66		DNF	6th		withdrawn
-	Louis Zborowski	Mercedes	44		DNF	12		deadly accident
-	Giulio Masetti	Mercedes	43		DNF	10		no more fuel
-	Alete Marconcini	Chiribiri	43		DNF	4th		mechanics

literature

• Adriano Cimarosti: Car races - The great prices of the world - cars, tracks and pilots from 1894 to today , Hallwag Verlag, Bern, 1986, ISBN 3-444-10326-3
• Paul Sheldon: A Record of Grand Prix and Voiturette Racing, Vol. 1-13 , St. Leonards Press, Bradford, 1987-2002

Web links

Commons : Italian Grand Prix 1924  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• IV Gran Premio d'Italia. www.teamdan.com, accessed on August 3, 2014 (English).