Why is the Italian Grand Prix often the shortest on the calendar?

Attention, this Sunday, the Sunday nap (for some) in front of the F1 will last a little less long than usual! The Italian Grand Prix often has the habit of being the shortest of the season. In 2003, the fastest Grand Prix in history even took place there, since Michael Schumacher won it in 1h14 and 19 seconds. In recent years, we were on the same basis. 1h14 in 2018, 1h15 in 2019 and 1h13 last year (NB: the race had been reduced by two laps in 2023, with two additional formation laps).

An increasingly shorter Italian Grand Prix even if, since 2020 and the multiplication of red flags, the race time has been punctually increased by a minimum of five minutes, with a total of 1h21 in 2021 and 1h20 in 2022. The 2020 edition, marked by the sensational victory of Pierre Gasly on Alpha Tauri, was the exception which proves the rule (1h47), due to the big crash of Charles Leclerc at the exit of Parabolic.

The Italian Grand Prix, 75 minutes and then it's gone

In comparison, the Hungarian Grand Prix lasted 1h38 and the Dutch Grand Prix 1h30. So how do you explain that the F1 Grand Prix held each year at Monza takes place on average in 75 minutes? It's ultimately quite mathematical and quite simple. An F1 Grand Prix, to be valid, must have a minimum of 305 km, with the exception of Monaco and its 260 kilometers.

With its 5,793 km of track, the Monza circuit is not particularly small, it is even in the overall average of the tracks on the calendar. It's actually the overall average speed that makes this Grand Prix so short. For example, the pole position record over the 5,7 km of the Lombard track was set in 1'18″887 by Lewis Hamilton in 2020, when the pole record in Bahrain, for example, on a slightly shorter circuit (5,4 km), is 1'27″264, achieved the same year by the same driver. That is a difference of ten seconds per lap, for equivalent distances.

Charles Leclerc, winner of the event in 2019. © DPPI

This is due in fact to the characteristics of Monza, which is not nicknamed the "Temple of Speed" for nothing. The circuit, in absolute terms, is quite simple: four fast corners, two chicanes, and no slow sectors. The rest? Straights. Lots of straights. More straights. Enough to transform these single-seaters into aerodynamically discharged rockets. Lewis Hamilton's record lap in 2020 was set at an average of 264,362 km/h. Just that.

So, the 305 km (306,720 in the case of Monza) are swallowed up more quickly in Italy than elsewhere, even if the race distance is the same as elsewhere. Ironically, three weeks after Monza, Formula 1 will be in Singapore, known for being… one of the longest Grand Prix of the season (often around the maximum duration of 2 hours), with a pole position that is fought in 11 seconds more than in Monza, with a lap record 17 seconds slower than in Italy. And again, these are the figures for 2023, so after the removal of the two chicanes in the last sector of the Marina Bay circuit! In the space of three weeks, the drivers will therefore have the right to the shortest Grand Prix of the season… and the longest, therefore…

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