The Italian Grand Prix is back at Monza this weekend, bringing Formula 1 to the circuit that has hosted more grands prix than any other. For Nina Rindt, who once kept time for Jochen Rindt during a practice session there in 1970, it is the sort of place where the past never really leaves the track.
That is why fans keep searching what's the weather around Monza whenever race week arrives. The setting is not just another stop on the calendar. Monza sits in a royal park, ringed by woodland, and has long been called the cathedral of speed, a place described as the spiritual home of Ferrari and the tifosi.
Its history helps explain the attention. Monza has staged grands prix in all but one year since Formula 1 began in 1950, missing only 1980 when it was being renovated. The first world championship was decided there 76 years ago, Giuseppe Farina won the 1950 race and the inaugural drivers' title in an Alfa Romeo, and he remains the only driver to win the title in his home country.
The list of landmark moments runs through the decades. Juan Manuel Fangio, Alberto Ascari and Farina lined up before the start of the 1953 race, Fangio won that afternoon and Ascari took the title. Stirling Moss won in 1956, but the points from that race still handed Fangio the fourth of his five world titles after Peter Collins gave up his car. Maria Teresa de Filippis also drove for Maserati at her home race in 1958.
Monza's speed has always carried a cost. In 1961, Wolfgang von Trips collided with Jim Clark's Lotus on the second lap and was killed along with 14 others. Jim Clark won the grand prix in 1963 and secured his first of two drivers' championships for Lotus, but the circuit's reputation was already shaped by both triumph and loss.
That mix is why Monza still feels different from almost anywhere else. Jackie Stewart won in 1969 by less than two tenths of a second, with Jochen Rindt, Jean-Pierre Beltoise and Bruce McLaren among the top four. A year later, Nina Rindt was in the pits timing her husband during practice, and shortly after that picture was taken he was killed on the approach to the Parabolica corner before becoming Formula 1's only posthumous world champion a few weeks later.
Even now, the track keeps adding to its record book. Max Verstappen set the fastest lap in F1 history in qualifying at Monza last year, a reminder that the circuit still rewards outright pace. The race itself is the next thing on the schedule this weekend, and at Monza that is never just another grand prix. It is another chapter in the sport's longest-running stage.
