1925 Italian Grand Prix

The Autodromo di Milano in its driven version.

In 1925 Alfa Romeo celebrated a double victory with the P2. This time Gastone Brilli-Peri won ahead of his compatriot Giuseppe Campari

The 5th Italian Grand Prix took place on September 6, 1925 at the Autodromo di Milano in Monza .

The race was the last and decisive run of the first automobile world championship for automobile manufacturers, participation was mandatory for the evaluation. The race was carried out according to the rules of the international racing formula for two-seater racing cars up to 2 liters displacement with a minimum weight of 650 kg and a minimum width of the body of 80 cm. The minimum distance was 800 km, and the number of 80 laps of 10 km each was achieved. At the same time, the race also had its own rating for Voiturette- class cars with a maximum displacement of 1.5 liters.

The winner was Gastone Brilli-Peri in an Alfa Romeo P2 .

run

Before the last World Championship run, the brands Alfa Romeo and Delage were tied at the top with one victory each ( Belgium and France ) with one failure each, followed by Indianapolis winner Duesenberg one point behind. Nonetheless, Delage - on the pretext of an overly tight racing calendar - gave preference to a seemingly certain success in the race in San Sebastián, which was scheduled two weeks later, over a possible defeat by Alfa Romeo and decided not to participate in Monza. Also Sunbeam renounced the start, while Bugatti took only with racing cars of the smaller Voiturette category. Thus, the title win for Alfa Romeo could only be prevented by Duesenberg, who after initial disinterest and a few subsequent association quarrels had finally started the journey across the Atlantic with two cars and a large entourage. To win the title, however, the US team would have needed a double victory or a total failure of the Alfa Romeos, and a simple success would have required a decisive race to be held within 48 hours. Finally, the two slim racing single-seaters in the cockpit area had to be widened so that they at least "optically" corresponded to some extent with the Grand Prix regulations.

After the death of Antonio Ascari at the previous French Grand Prix , Alfa Romeo started training with the driver line-up Giuseppe Campari , Gastone Brilli-Peri and the young driver and later superstar Tazio Nuvolari , who, however, was injured after a training accident caused by the American leader Championship, Peter DePaolo , was replaced. This, in turn, was originally intended to be the driver of a third Duesenberg, so the American team had two starting positions for the two-time Indianapolis winner Tommy Milton and the relatively unknown Peter Kreis . In addition, the two new Diatto Grand Prix cars designed by the Maserati brothers with Emilio Materassi and Alfieri Maserati in the cockpit and the Guyot Speciale  - an older Rolland - driven by its builder Albert Guyot himself appeared in the Grand Prix class for the first time Pilain chassis with a supercharged six-cylinder slide engine based on the Burt-McCollum patents . The rest of the total of 16 car strong field of participants consisted of eight so-called Voiturettes  - racing cars of only 1.5 liters of displacement - including the entire Bugatti - factory team with Bartolomeo Costantini and Jules Goux on Bugatti Type 39 , a scaled down version of the proven Type 35 -Reihenachtzylinders , and Giulio Foresti , Pierre and Ferdinand de Vizcaya on older Bugatti Type 37 four-cylinder engines.

After the start, for which the line-up was drawn as usual, Peter Kreis with his surprisingly strong Duesenberg initially took the lead, but then went off the track on the third lap. This brought the Alfa trio with Campari, Brilli-Peri and dePaolo in front in front of fourth-placed Milton on the second Duesenberg, who even overtook the Alfa Romeo in front of him on the tenth lap. In fifth place followed with Goux in the eight-cylinder Bugatti, the best placed in the Voiturette class. Subsequently, the classification remained largely unchanged up to about three quarters of the race distance, until the two leading Alfa Romeos had to come to the pits to refuel on laps 33 and 34. As a result, Milton temporarily moved forward, while Campari's car stood in the pits for a long time due to ignition problems and then with substitute driver Giovanni Minozzi at the wheel was only able to restart the race well behind. In the meantime, Milton had to refuel too, so that the order was Brilli-Peri before DePaolo and Milton. A kind of elimination race then developed in which Milton, with a twenty-minute repair stop because of a broken oil line, and DePaolo's Alfa Romeo with a broken exhaust, lost their places, so that in the end Minozzi moved up to second place. Only Brilli-Peri was able to drive through without any problems and in the end won with a gap of almost 19 minutes on his team-mate and even half an hour ahead of third place - and at the same time winner of the Voiturette classification - Costantini on Bugatti.

With this victory, Alfa Romeo also won the first world championship (at that time for brands) in automotive history after the success in Belgium. To commemorate this, the company emblem was surrounded by a laurel wreath until the 1980s.

Results

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
SA Autocostruzioni Diatto	01	Emilio Materassi	Diatto GP 8C	Bugatti 2.0l I8	P
	06th	Alfieri Maserati Giorgio Rubielti
Duesenberg Brothers	02		Dusseldorf 122	Duesenberg 2.0L I8	F.
	07th	Tommy Milton
	11	Peter Circle
Automobiles Delage	03	Albert Divo	Delage 2 LCV	Delage 2.0L V12
	08th	Robert Benoist
	12	René Thomas
	15th	Paul Torchy
Établissements Albert Guyot et Cie	04th	Albert Guyot	Guyot Speciale GS25	Burt-McCollum 2.0L I6	M.
SA Ital. Ing.Nicola Romeo	05	Giuseppe Campari	Alfa Romeo P2	Alfa Romeo 2.0L I8 compressor	P
	10	Peter DePaolo
	14th	Gastone Brilli-Peri
	16	Giovanni Minozzi
SA des Établissements Rolland-Pilain	09		Rolland Pilain
	13
Chiribiri & Co	17th	Ettore Santoleri	Chiribiri 12/16
	20th	Luigi Platé
Ernest Eldridge	18th	Ernest Eldridge	Eldridge special	Anzani 1.0L I4
Usines Bugatti	19th	Meo Costantini	Bugatti T39	Bugatti 1.5L I8	M.
	22nd	Jules Goux
	21st	Pierre de Vizcaya	Bugatti T37	Bugatti 1.5L I4
	23	Ferdinand de Vizcaya
	24	Giulio Foresti Carlo Masetti

Race result

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap	Failure reason
01	Gastone Brilli-Peri	Alfa Romeo	80		5: 14: 33.3 h	7th
02	Giuseppe Campari Giovanni Minozzi	Alfa Romeo	80		+ 18: 56.9 min	3
03	Meo Costantini	Bugatti	80		+ 30: 07.3 min	10
04th	Tommy Milton	Duesenberg	80		+ 32: 07.2 min	4th
05	Peter DePaolo	Duesenberg	80		+ 33: 37.0 min	5
06th	Ferdinand de Vizcaya	Bugatti	80		+ 36: 16.1 min	14th
07th	Giulio Foresti	Bugatti	80		+ 40: 45.2 min	15th
08th	Pierre de Vizcaya	Bugatti	80		+ 47: 03.8 min	12
-	Jules Goux	Bugatti	64		DNF	13		Leak in the fuel tank
-	Ettore Santoleri	Chiribiri	38		DNF	8th		accident
-	Emilio Materassi	Diatto	19th		DNF	1		mechanics
-	Luigi Platé	Chiribiri	13		DNF	11		mechanics
-	Albert Guyot	Guyot	8th		DNF	2		mechanics
-	Peter Circle	Duesenberg	3		DNF	6th	3: 36.7 min	accident
-	Ernest Eldridge	Old ones	2		DNF	9		Ignition damage
-	Alfieri Maserati	Diatto			DNS			Start ban, driver locked

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 1925  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• V Gran Premio d'Italia. www.teamdan.com, accessed on August 5, 2014 . 
• Leif Snellman, Hans Etzrodt: GRAN PREMIO D'ITALIA. www.kolumbus.fi, July 11, 2019, accessed on May 5, 2020 .