1949 Italian Grand Prix

Winner: Alberto Ascari

The XIX. Grand Prix of Italy and at the same time IX. The European Grand Prix was a Formula 1 race that took place on September 11, 1949 at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza near Milan . The race belonged to the category of Grandes Épreuves and was over 80 according to the regulations of the International Formula 1 (racing cars up to 1.5 liters displacement with a compressor or up to 4.5 liters displacement without a compressor; race distance at least 300 km or at least three hours of racing) Rounds of 6.28 km were held, which corresponded to a total distance of 502.38 km.

The winner was Alberto Ascari in a Ferrari 125 F1 , who finally achieved his breakthrough as an international top driver.

run

For the first time after the war, the Italian Grand Prix returned to its traditional location at the Monza Autodrome . After the end of the war, the site was used as an arsenal for Allied military vehicles that were no longer needed, which had seriously affected the entire facility. After the decision to restore the track, the repair of the damage was much quicker and easier than feared, so that in autumn 1948 , the Gran Premio di Monza , a major international race that was able to take place with great success , the actual Grand Prix of Italy , which was held this year on a makeshift racetrack in Valentino Park in Turin , immediately to overtake the rank.

For 1949 , however, the organizer had other concerns. With the withdrawal of Alfa Romeo from the Formula 1  - the team that the world had represented more than any other country on the Grand Prix circuits - the main attraction had gone to the public lost and neither Maserati , suffering from chronic underfunding, Scuderia Ferrari , which had just become an independent manufacturer, seemed able to fill the gap that this created.

On its debut in the 1948 season, the Maserati 4CLT / 48 was nicknamed San Remo after the location of its success there . The cars, which were not used by the factory itself, as usual, but by several customer teams were often in poor condition afterwards due to insufficient maintenance, showed a high failure rate even for the conditions at the time and were regularly outclassed by the overpowering Alfa Romeo Alfetta in direct comparison .

After all, the Maseratis continued to be the backbone of the fields of participants, at least numerically, as was the case in the Italian Grand Prix, in which nine competed. However, at the beginning of the season, the two top drivers Luigi Villoresi and Alberto Ascari were poached from Scuderia Ferrari . Both were close friends and therefore only had to be signed by the teams together, so that the drivers remaining with Maserati, including Emmanuel de Graffenried , Prince Bira and Reginald Parnell as the most famous names, embodied the second row of Grand Prix sport.

Ferrari's first in-house Formula 1 design, the Ferrari 125 GPC , was not too convincing when it first appeared at the Italian Grand Prix at the end of the 1948 season and revealed some fundamental flaws. Chief designer Gioacchino Colombo wanted to keep the construction as simple as possible and therefore initially dispensed with DOHC valve control and two-stage compressor. This meant that the V12 engine was no more powerful than Maserati's four-cylinder, and the extremely short wheelbase also led to extremely problematic driving behavior. So Colombo immediately started working on an improved version with a completely redesigned cylinder head, now with two overhead camshafts per cylinder bank, crankshaft with roller bearings, double compressor and a significantly longer wheelbase. However, the financial and technical possibilities of the still young plant were largely exhausted by the operation of the racing team and the parallel production of sports cars, so that completion was delayed well into the season.

A few weeks before the home Grand Prix, Enzo Ferrari finally attempted to blackmail him for financial support and announced that he would immediately refrain from any racing activities in Italy, a tactic that he later used again and again with success. The Italian automobile club ACI reacted immediately and, out of concern for the attractiveness of the starting field, promised a considerable sum to be paid out to the Italian racing team, which was able to come up with two copies of a new design at the Italian Grand Prix . So Ferrari was finally represented in Monza with an impressive team of four vehicles, with Alberto Ascari, who had just won Ferrari's first victory in a Grande Épreuve at the Swiss Grand Prix , as well as his close friend Luigi Villoresi the two new ones Racing cars of the type Ferrari 125 F1 were made available. Raymond Sommer and Felice Bonetto as well as the Briton Peter Whitehead , who drove on his own account, had to be satisfied with the previous models.

The announced financial assistance immediately aroused desires in other, completely unexpected places. The engine specialist Professor Mario Speluzzi had already modified some Maseratis for Scuderia Milan according to his ideas. After the team had run into financial difficulties in the meantime and had completely stopped Grand Prix racing at the end of 1948, it saw the opportunity to also benefit from this tender. The "new" model, however, was essentially two used Maserati 4CLT / 48 , whose engines were subjected to some major changes by Speluzzi - including the use of the largest compressors previously seen in Grand Prix racing. The real weak point of the Maserati, its lack of reliability, could not be remedied; because there was not enough time for a comprehensive testing program. The two cars did not play a role in the Italian Grand Prix, although with Giuseppe Farina and Piero Taruffi, two of the most well-known drivers of their time were available. Farina is said to have parked his Maserati-Milan in a hopeless position during the race out of frustration. It has not yet been clarified whether the team was ultimately successful with its right to participate in the allocation of funds by the ACI.

The only serious competition from abroad were the five Lago-Talbot . The Lago-Talbot T26C with its 4.5-liter naturally aspirated engine was produced in small numbers in 1948 and was an almost ideal vehicle for the numerous French private drivers. Stable and easy to maintain, it lacked a bit of driving dynamics and speed The main advantage, however, was that, in contrast to the racing cars with supercharged engines, the car regularly traveled the Grand Prix distances without time-consuming refueling stops. In this way, Louis Rosier had also achieved a sensational surprise victory shortly before at the Belgian Grand Prix . In addition to him, Grand Prix veteran Philippe Étancelin at the wheel of a Lago-Talbot had shown quite impressive performances several times this season, while the other drivers, Pierre Levegh , Guy Mairesse and the Belgian Johnny Claes , who grew up in Great Britain , still largely were nameless.

The three remaining participants, on the other hand, were almost negligible. Cuth Harrison had come to Monza from Great Britain , whose ERA C-Type from the pre-war period had been "modernized" at least externally by adding some more streamlined body parts. Despite the antiquated material, he showed a very good performance in the race and was able to achieve sixth place in the end, albeit with a considerable deficit. The Delahaye of the French Eugène Chaboud was basically a two-seater racing sports car that had already been converted into a makeshift racing car in 1946 by removing headlights and fenders and using a streamlined body. The Platé-Talbot finally, by its owner Luigi Platé controlled handed in its origin even on the Grand Prix Talbot from 1926 back, which in the meantime by his later owners, however, until almost beyond recognition - including through exchange of chassis components and Frame - had been modified again and again. At least, however, the use of the 26-year-old engine represented an all-time record in Grand Prix history.

In the race, Ascari was in a class of its own with his new Ferrari. Even before Villoresi had to give up on the 27th lap with a broken gear lever, he was already 40 seconds ahead of him and could now afford to slow down, considering the material, without endangering his lead. Behind them, the Argentine Benedicto Campos and his Maserati, financed by the Argentine Automobile Club ACA , had taken second position in one of his best races after Villoresi's failure, until he too retired after two thirds of the distance with a technical defect. The next beneficiary was Étancelin, who had initially been even further back in midfield with his Lago-Talbot, but had moved up position by position with the usual non-stop strategy compared to the refueling stops of the compressor-operated competitors and finally after another great ride Scored position two. Despite a total of two stops by the leading Ferrari, he was unable to significantly reduce the gap on Ascari, but crossed the finish line more than a lap behind the winner. However, Ascari's success was retrospectively questioned when it became known that Ascari had been pushed by four mechanics during one of his stops. Although this contradicted the international regulations for Grand Prix races, it was apparently covered by the regulations of the ACI . In any case, Étancelin waived a protest in the end, so that Ascari and Ferrari could keep their second victory in a row. Both the driver and the team had thus achieved their final breakthrough in Grand Prix racing. The success could not hide the fact that Ascari's race average was significantly slower than in Wimille's victory drive in the Alfa Romeo Alfetta in the opening race in the same place last year.

Registration list

No.	driver	constructor	vehicle	team	comment
02	Benedicto Campos	Maserati	Maserati 4CLT / 48	Squadra Argentina
04th	Giuseppe Farina	Maserati	Maserati 4CLT / 48	Scuderia Milano
06th	"B. Bira "	Maserati	Maserati 4CLT / 48	Scuderia Enrico Platé
08th	Alberto Ascari	Ferrari	Ferrari 125	Scuderia Ferrari
10	Louis Rosier	Talbot-Lago	Talbot-Lago T26C	L. Rosier (private)
14th	Nello Pagani	Talbot-Lago	Talbot-Darracq 700	N. Pagani (private)
16	Felice Bonetto	Ferrari	Ferrari 125	Scuderia Ferrari
18th	Peter Whitehead	Ferrari	Ferrari 125	P. Whitehead (private)
20th	Reg Parnell	Maserati	Maserati 4CLT / 48	R. Parnell (private)
22nd	Guy Mairesse	Talbot-Lago	Talbot-Lago T26C	SFACS Ecurie France
24	David Murray	Maserati	Maserati 4CLT / 48	D. Murray (private)
26th	Clemente Biondetti	Maserati	Maserati 4CLT	C. Biondetti (private)
28	Eugène Chaboud	Delahaye	Delahaye 135S	E. Chaboud (private)
30th	Henri Louveau	Maserati	Maserati 4CL	H. Louveau (private)
32	Franco Rol	Maserati	Maserati 4CLT / 48	F. Rol (private)
34	Luigi Villoresi	Ferrari	Ferrari 125	Scuderia Ferrari
36	Leslie Brooke	Maserati	Maserati 4CLT / 48	L. Brooke (private)
40	Raymond Summers	Ferrari	Ferrari 125	Scuderia Ferrari
42	Toulo de Graffenried	Maserati	Maserati 4CLT / 48	Scuderia Enrico Platé
44	Cuth Harrison	ERA	ERA B-Type	C. Harrisson (private)
50	Johnny Claes	Talbot-Lago	Talbot-Lago T26C	Ecurie Belge
52	Piero Taruffi	Maserati	Maserati 4CLT / 48	Scuderia Milano
54	Philippe Étancelin	Talbot-Lago	Talbot-Lago T26C	P. Étancelin (private)
56	Pierre Levegh	Talbot-Lago	Talbot-Lago T26C	P. Levegh (private)

Starting grid

1	2	3	4th
Ascari 2: 05.0 min	Villoresi 2: 05.4 min	Farina 2: 07.8 min	Summer 2: 09.8 min
5	6th	7th	8th
Campos 2: 11.8 min	de Graffenried 2: 12.6 min	Bira 2: 13.0 min	Étancelin 2: 13.8 min
9	10	11	12
Biondetti 2: 14.0 min	Rosier 2: 15.0 min	Rol 2: 16.4 min	Claes 2: 16.6 min
13	14th	15th	16
Parnell 2: 16.8 min	Levegh 2: 17.4 min	Harrison 2: 17.4 min	Bonetto 2: 19.2 min
17th	18th	19th	20th
Murray 2: 21.4 min	Whitehead 2: 22.8 min	May Fair 2: 22.8 min	Chaboud 2: 23.4 min
21st	22nd	23	24
Louveau 2: 31.0 min	Pagani 2: 33.8 min	Brooke 2: 37.8 min	Taruffi without time

Race result

Item	No.	driver	constructor	Round	time	Failure reason
1	8th	Alberto Ascari	Ferrari	80	2: 58.53.6 h
2	54	Philippe Étancelin	Talbot-Lago	79	+ 01 lap
3	6th	"B. Bira "	Maserati	77	+ 03 rounds
4th	42	Toulo de Graffenried	Maserati	76	+ 04 rounds
5	40	Raymond Summers	Ferrari	75	+ 05 rounds
6th	44	Cuth Harrison	ERA	75	+ 05 rounds
7th	52	Piero Taruffi	Maserati	64	+ 16 rounds
8th	50	Johnny Claes	Talbot-Lago	62	+ 18 rounds
9	30th	Henri Louveau	Maserati	59	+ 21 rounds
DNF	2	Benedicto Campos	Maserati	55		Connecting rod
DNF	28	Eugène Chaboud	Delahaye	55		Overheating
DNF	10	Louis Rosier	Talbot-Lago	49		engine
DNF	24	David Murray	Maserati	46		accident
DNF	56	Pierre Levegh	Talbot-Lago	33		Rear axle
DNF	32	Franco Rol	Maserati	30th		engine
DNF	22nd	Guy Mairesse	Talbot-Lago	28		accident
DNF	34	Luigi Villoresi	Ferrari	26th		transmission
DNF	4th	Giuseppe Farina	Maserati	16		engine
DNF	36	Leslie Brooke	Maserati	16		Fuel pump
DNF	16	Felice Bonetto	Ferrari	14th		Cylinder head gasket
DNF	18th	Peter Whitehead	Ferrari	9		engine
DNF	20th	Reg Parnell	Maserati	3		Connecting rod
DNF	26th	Clemente Biondetti	Maserati	2		Given up
DNF	14th	Nello Pagani	Talbot-Lago	1		engine

Fastest race lap : Alberto Ascari ( Alfa Romeo ), 2: 06.8 min = 179.20 km / h  

Web links

Commons : Automobilsport 1949  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• XIX Gran Premio d'Italia. www.silhouet.com, accessed April 21, 2018 (English). 
• XIX Gran Premio d'Italia. www.statsf1.com, accessed on April 21, 2018 (English). 

Remarks

1. ↑ As with the previous model , the official type designation was still 4CL , the designation as 4CLT / 48 was only introduced later in the literature for better differentiation, but has since become generally accepted.