1947 Italian Grand Prix
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The XVII. Italian Grand Prix took place on September 7, 1947 on a temporary race track on public roads around the Milan Exhibition Center ( Fiera Campionaria ). The race belonged to the category of Grandes Épreuves and was organized according to the provisions of the International Grand Prix Formula (later Formula 1 - racing cars up to 1.5 liters displacement with compressor or up to 4.5 liters displacement without compressor; race distance at least 300 km or . At least three hours of racing) over 100 laps of 3.447 km each, which corresponded to a total distance of 344.728 km.
The winner was Carlo Felice Trossi in an Alfa Romeo Tipo 158 "Alfetta" , who achieved his first success in an official International Grand Prix with it .
The race
The traditional home of the Italian Grand Prix at the Monza Autodrom was not yet available in 1947 because the racetrack was used as a parking space for Allied military vehicles, which in particular had a negative impact on the condition of the track. For this reason, the Italian automobile club RACI had to look for another venue for its Grand Prix. A suitable place for this was finally found in a course on inner-city streets around the Fiera Campionario exhibition center in Milan . It is not the same route that was used the year before at the Gran Premio di Milano within the nearby Parco Sempione, which was considered too winding for the occasion of an Italian Grand Prix.
The only special feature of the uninspiring route, which otherwise consisted almost entirely of right-angled curves and short straights, was a 315 ° bend around the roundabout on Piazzale Damiano Chiesa. The reason for choosing the course was primarily the fact that in this way the Milanese city population would have no problems getting to the track in large numbers, despite the continuously tense supply of fuel. In addition, as Alfa Romeo's company headquarters , Milan was the secret motorsport capital of Italy, so to speak, and the factory premises in the Portello district at that time were only a few hundred meters away from the race track.
For Alfa Romeo, winning just outside its own factory gates was therefore a matter of honor, especially since the highly developed “Alfettas” were practically unbeatable in those years. The greatest danger for this was the drivers themselves, among whom there was a strong rivalry, so that race director Giovanbattista Guidotti wanted to prevent overly tough duels between his drivers on the track by specifying a stable management. For example, Jean-Pierre Wimille , who, contrary to the express instructions of the team , had not let his stable mate Achille Varzi win the race for the Belgian Grand Prix , had to watch the cockpit of his car now being handled by the team's chief mechanic, Alessandro Gaboardi , was occupied. At the same time, Alfa Romeo came as a state-owned company in which the unions had great influence, thus meeting the demands of the workforce, in addition to the well-to-do gentlemen drivers Varzi and Carlo Felice Trossi, the other two cars with drivers from the workforce - besides Gaboardi also the chief test driver of the Consalvo Sanesi plant , which was used regularly this season. Gaboardi, however, was overwhelmed by this task from the start, so that it remained the only Grand Prix race of his career.
The hardest competitors for the Alfettas were, as always, the Maserati 4CL , a model from 1939 , nine of which gathered in Milan for the start. The most interesting example was the Scuderia Milan car for Raymond Sommer , which had been completely redesigned by their technical director, Professor Mario Speluzzi , and fitted with a new tubular frame chassis and two-stage supercharging. Other strong representatives were Luigi Villoresi and the not-too-well-known Alberto Ascari for Scuderia Ambrosiana , which operates with strong support from the Maserati parent company , and Grand Prix veteran Louis Chiron with a car prepared by Enrico Platé . For all, however, it was true that they were clearly inferior to the Alfettas in terms of driving performance and that the teams often lacked care in terms of technical preparation and organization.
According to the stable management, after Wimille in Switzerland and Varzi in Belgium, Trossi was now planned as the winner of the Italian Grand Prix in Milan. Amazingly, however, it was the Sanesi, who had not yet made such a strong appearance, who achieved the fastest training time with his Alfa Romeo. In the race, however, it was Trossi who, as expected, took the lead straight away. Second was initially a little surprising Villoresi, who, however, almost inevitably fell back after a few laps with technical problems on his Maserati.
Sanesi was in second place, followed by Sommer, who, however, soon got into trouble too and was stopped by an oil leak on the car. Varzi used the opportunity for a short demonstration of his actual skills, first to briefly take the lead past Sanesi and then for a moment past Trossi, but then immediately joined him again as instructed. Ascari was also able to briefly flash his talent and even sit in front of Sanesi's Alfa Romeo for a few laps with the Maserati, until he too was thrown back a long way by a repair stop. After another Maserati pilot, the Swiss Emmanuel de Graffenried , had to give up prematurely, nothing stood in the way of a quadruple victory for Alfa Romeo.
In the final laps of this otherwise largely low-climax race, Trossi had his team-mate Varzi once again demonstratively to show him his thanks and respect as he crossed the finish line, which the audience, who would have preferred to see a real race, received only with clear displeasure has been.
Registration list
Starting grid
Race result
Fastest race lap : Carlo Felice Trossi ( Alfa Romeo ), 1: 44.0 min = 119.3 km / h
Web links
- XVII Gran Premio d'Italia. www.silhouet.com, accessed April 1, 2018 (English).