1933 Italian Grand Prix
The XI. The Italian Grand Prix took place on September 10, 1933 at the Autodromo di Milano in Monza . The race was one of the Grandes Épreuves and was held according to the applicable regulations (minimum distance 500 km) over 50 laps of 10 km, which corresponded to a total distance of 500 km. Winner of the race was Luigi Fagioli on an Alfa Romeo Tipo B / P3 of the Scuderia Ferrari .
Subsequently, on the same day, the Monza Grand Prix was held as a Formula Libre race on a 4.5 km long section of the racetrack, which with its two steep turns was designed for particularly high speeds. In the course of this event, which consisted of several individual races, Giuseppe Campari , Mario Umberto Borzacchini and a little later Stanisław Czaykowski, three of the most famous racing drivers at the time, were killed in accidents, so the race was stopped. The day after that went down in motorsport history as the “Black Sunday of Monza”.
run
After the Italian Grand Prix had been brought forward to spring dates in the two previous years due to the changed conditions of the event in order to make better use of the daylight, it was able to return to its traditional date in September by reducing the minimum distance to 500 km for 1933. In the meantime, however, the Gran Premio di Monza had established itself there as an independent event, which was now organized together with the Grand Prix as part of a motorsport festival. The course for the Italian Grand Prix , which was scheduled for the morning, was again the complete combination of a circuit and an oval course of 10 km in length, while the Monza Grand Prix in the afternoon, which was composed of several shorter individual runs, was on the 4.5 km long high-speed oval was driven from straight lines connected by banked curves.
In the run-up to the event, there had been some turbulence between the teams and drivers, during which the then top driver Tazio Nuvolari, together with his teammates Mario Umberto Borzacchini and Piero Taruffi, switched from Scuderia Ferrari to Maserati . Immediately thereafter, Luigi Fagioli and Giuseppe Campari took the opposite path and formed the new Ferrari team together with Louis Chiron, who had previously raced as an independent driver . The Scuderia operated this year as a practically unofficial works team for Alfa Romeo , but initially had to be content with older Alfa Romeo "Monza" models . In the meantime, however, after Maserati had increasingly gained the upper hand with the new Monoposto 8CM in the middle of the season , the factory finally approved the use of the Alfa Romeo Tipo B / P3 , which had dominated the race last year.
This created a two-tier society in Grand Prix racing in which only these six drivers with their monopostos had a chance of winning, while the rest of the field with the older two-seater racing cars was hardly any longer seriously competitive. This particularly affected the troubled French Bugatti team, where on top of that the development of the new, still designed as a two-seater, Grand Prix model Type 59 was delayed so that the team decided not to participate in Monza.
Both Scuderia Ferrari and Maserati, however, had submitted reports for both events in Monza. However, since it was to be feared that the participants in the Grand Prix - drivers and cars - would be too exhausted after the 500 km distance, both teams had divided their forces. In keeping with the importance of the race, the morning Gran Premio d´Italia was attended by the respective team captains, i.e. Nuvolari with Taruffi's backing at Maserati and Chiron and Fagioli in an Alfa Romeo. It was the first meeting of single- seaters from two different manufacturers at a Grande Épreuve .
The four drivers immediately formed a leading group in the race, in which they fought a typical Monza slipstream from the start. By the 15th lap the lead had changed between them six times before the race was pulled apart by the pit stops. But after that, as a result of the relatively numerous scheduled and unscheduled pit stops - the high speeds took their toll on the tires - Nuvolari, Chiron and Fagioli were always in front, and while Taruffi was eliminated after half the distance with a not too serious accident, the outcome of the race between these three was still completely open. With ten laps to go, Chiron had to park his Alfa Romeo with an engine failure, so that for Nuvolari, who was leading Fagioli by about half a minute at the time, victory seemed within reach. But in the 48th of a total of 50 laps he had to go to the pits again with another puncture and Fagioli was somewhat happy to take his first Grand Prix victory.
Black Sunday of Monza
The afternoon of the Italian Grand Prix was followed by the Gran Premio di Monza , which, as always, was held according to very special regulations. First, the field of participants was divided into three groups, each of which had to complete a qualifying run over 14 laps or a total distance of 63 km. The top four of each preliminary run were allowed to compete in the final race over 22 laps or 99 km.
The Ferrari team had prepared something special for this race and purchased a 4.5-liter racing car, the Carlo Felice Trossi , specially designed for such high-speed races from the US manufacturer Duesenberg , who already had a lot of experience in oval races had to start in Monza in the first run. In fact, the Italian was initially able to fight for victory with the Polish private driver Stanisław Czaykowski in his powerful 5-liter Bugatti Type 54 for a while, but on the seventh lap his drive was abruptly terminated by an engine failure that reportedly caused the car to be distributed large amounts of oil on the track at the entrance to the south bend, so that Guy Moll spun at full speed in his Alfa Romeo "Monza", which fortunately had no serious consequences.
With Borzacchini in Maserati and Campari in Alfa Romeo, who started for Scuderia Ferrari, the two audience favorites and hottest favorites for the overall victory were drawn together for the second run and while the drivers were preparing for the start, the race management tried the oil with insufficient resources remove the route. It is controversial whether this oil stain was the cause of the subsequent events, whether the front brakes of the cars, which had been dismantled for weight reasons, were the decisive factor, or whether Campari was simply carried too far outwards in an attempt to fend off an overtaking maneuver by Borzacchini, at least If the Alfa Romeo skidded in the said south bend, crashed into the oil barrels serving as a barrier - according to other reports it was a boundary wall - overturned and came to lie with the wheels up in the undergrowth at the foot of the embankment behind the banked bend. The Campari trapped under the car was dead on the spot. Borzacchini also strayed from the track trying to avoid Campari's spinning Alfa Romeo. He was thrown out of his Maserati, hit a tree and lay on the side of the track with serious injuries. He died shortly after being admitted to hospital.
Despite this serious accident, the race was brought to an end. Afterwards there were long discussions about a possible interruption of the event, but as the impatience of the audience, who had been kept very inadequately informed about the events, increased, the decision was finally made to continue. After a delay of several hours, the final run was finally started. Czaykowski, whose Bugatti was by far the strongest car in the field, soon took the lead and already looked like the sure winner when he, too, went off the track at roughly the same point. In the subsequent rollover, his head hit a stone and then came to rest under his car, which then burned out completely. After this third fatality, the officials finally had some understanding and stopped the race after 14 of the 22 scheduled laps. Frenchman Marcel Lehoux from Algeria was declared the winner of the Monza Grand Prix on his privately used Bugatti Type 51 .
Results
Registration list
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Race result
| Item | driver | constructor | Round | Stops | time | begin | Fastest lap | Failure reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
 Luigi Fagioli
|
Alfa Romeo
|
50 | 2: 51: 41,000 | 5 | 3: 13,200 | ||
| 2 |
Tazio Nuvolari
|
Maserati
|
50 | + 40,200 | 9 | |||
| 3 |
Goffredo Zehender
|
Maserati
|
48 | + 2 rounds | 12 | |||
| 4th |
 Marcel Lehoux
|
Alfa Romeo
|
47 | + 3 rounds | 19th | |||
| 5 |
Eugenio Siena Antonio Brivio
|
Alfa Romeo
|
47 | + 3 rounds | 1 | |||
| 6th |
Carlo Castelbarco
|
Alfa Romeo
|
47 | + 3 rounds | 6th | |||
| 7th |
Pietro Ghersi
|
Alfa Romeo
|
47 | + 3 rounds | 15th | |||
| 8th |
 Guy minor
|
Alfa Romeo
|
46 | + 4 rounds | 16 | |||
| 9 |
Renato Balestrero
|
Alfa Romeo
|
44 | + 6 rounds | 18th | |||
| 10 |
Robert Brunet
|
Bugatti
|
43 | + 7 rounds | 4th | |||
| 11 |
 Whitney Straight
|
Maserati
|
43 | + 7 rounds | 17th | |||
| 12 |
Earl Howe
|
Maserati
|
41 | + 9 rounds | 13 | |||
| 13 |
Lelio Pellegrini
|
Alfa Romeo
|
39 | + 11 rounds | 10 | |||
| - |
 Louis Chiron
|
Alfa Romeo
|
42 | DNF | 11 | Valve damage | ||
| - |
Antonio Brivio
|
Alfa Romeo
|
25th | DNF | 14th | failure | ||
| - |
Piero Taruffi
|
Maserati
|
25th | DNF | 7th | accident | ||
| - |
Jean Gaupillat
|
Bugatti
|
9 | DNF | 3 | failure | ||
| - |
Clemente Biondetti
|
MB
|
8th | DNF | 8th | failure | ||
| - |
Luigi Premoli
|
BMP
|
2 | DNF | 2 | failure |
Web links
- XI Gran Premio d'Italia. www.teamdan.com, accessed on August 10, 2014 (English).
- Leif Snellman, Felix Muelas: XI ° GRAN PREMIO D'ITALIA. www.kolumbus.fi, April 4, 2013, accessed August 10, 2014 (English).