Exploring Monza’s Studpidly Steep, Abandoned Banking

For the briefest of moments, I feel like I’m going to topple backwards. I save myself from the pain and embarrassment of tumbling end over end, climb a little further, and slide back down slightly, ruing the lack of grip provided by my Vans high-tops. I’ve no chance of making it all the way to the Armco. Yep, the banking on the old Monza oval is stupidly steep.

The gradient is a whopping 80 per cent, so when you get to the steepest bits, it’s like you’re staring at - then trying to walk up - a massive wall. The original oval, built along with a road course in 1922, featured a mere 10 per cent gradient. With Grand Prix cars getting faster and faster in the 1950s, a new, steeper 2.6-mile oval was laid at the same time as a big revamp for the road course. Some events called for a combination of the two, giving a 6.2-mile beast of a track.

Monza is one of the oldest race tracks in the world, being only the third permanent course ever laid down. The second was Indianapolis, and the first was Brooklands. Having visited surviving sections of the latter, it’s the track I have in mind while having a poke around Monza’s oval, but here’s the thing - while massive chunks of Brooklands have long since been bulldozed and had houses and industrial estates unceremoniously dumped on top, Monza is still complete.

Monza’s oval so nearly suffered a similar fate. Although it had a spell hosting the Italian Grand Prix as part of the 6.2-mile Monza configuration, safety concerns led to the then-young Formula 1 World Championship switching to the road circuit only.

With or without the oval, Monza is a fast circuit, and that made it a killer, not just for the drivers but those coming to watch - 35 spectators have died here over the years along with 52 drivers. 14 of those spectator fatalities occurred during one horrific crash in the 1961 Italian Grand Prix, the fourth and final GP to use the oval. The year before, many teams had boycotted the race due to concerns about the bumpy surface breaking cars.

Other series continued to race on those huge banks, but by 1969, with oval circuits very much out of fashion in Europe and the concrete banking proving rough and bumpy, it hosted its last major event, the 1000km of Monza. From then, the road course was continually updated and made safer, while the oval was left to rot.

There was talk of razing it from the late 1980s onwards, with the local council wanting to restore old plans to have an observatory located in Monza Park, the giant, 688-hectare walled garden in which both the oval and the current track sit. In 1993, the decaying oval was branded as being a hazard to the public, further putting it at risk of demolition.

Thankfully, this never happened. The ‘Save the Monza Banking’ campaign headed by British journalist Chris Balfe drew attention to the oval’s plight, with his petition garnering 1,500 signatures including those of various legends of the sport such as Sir Stirling Moss, Sir Jack Brabham and John Surtees, as well as the Hollywood director John Frankenheimer, who used the banking to shoot 1966 film Grand Prix. 

The petition was delivered to the mayor of Monza in 1998, who was sympathetic towards the cause. And so, the banking still stands today, and no longer in a crumbling state, with resurfacing work in 2014 ensuring this invaluable piece of motorsport history is here for the foreseeable. It even sees some limited competition use, with a small section used for the Monza Rally Show.

In 2023, the Monza oval is…still quite rough and bumpy. I drive around a lower but still steep-feeling part of the banking as I take my slow ‘parade lap’ around as part of a Porsche 911 anniversary trip featuring various 992-generation 911s, and it’s a strange experience. It’s so far removed from motorsport as we know it today, even in series using ovals.

The thought of sitting unbelted in a cigar-shaped ‘50s F1 car nudging 180mph while jockeying for position is tricky to comprehend. The quickest-ever lap of the oval came via IndyCar. In 1958 a chap called Bob Veith managed an average speed of 176mph, completing his tour of the oval in just 54 seconds.

The asphalt-covered straight sections are a whole lot smoother and give incredible views of the incoming banking looming ever larger in the windscreen. It doesn’t take much imagination at all to picture Sterling Moss belting around here in his Lotus-Climax.

Parking up the cars to take photos plus trying (and failing) to climb to the top of the steepest bit of the banking, there’s a peacefulness that starkly contrasts what used to go on here. Monza sits on a public park, and a walking trail leads over the straights. We even see a dog walker making his way around the bottom of the banking - fences that are open today would normally prevent such a jaunt.

I can hardly blame the guy for taking advantage, though. What a place to go for a morning dog walk. What a place to experience in any way - this oval is a relic from a bygone era that needs to be remembered. Here’s hoping it stands for years to come.