Which F1 drivers do well at Italian Grand Prix with Lewis Hamilton successful at Monza

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Formula 1 has staged the Italian Grand Prix since its inaugural season in 1950 and has seen 20 drivers take repeat wins, so F1 Oversteer looks at the most successful drivers.

It was an Italian who first won a Grand Prix at Monza when Formula 1 visited Italy to see out the maiden championship. Giuseppe Farina dominated the event driving for Alfa Romeo and won by 1:18.6 ahead of an all-Italian podium, which also sealed him that year’s drivers’ title.

Home drivers even won the first three Italian Grand Prix as part of the F1 calendar thanks to Alberto Ascari taking back-to-back wins in 1951 and 1952. Formula 1 took over the naming of the event after it had been held since 1921 as part of pre-war and of pre-F1 championships.

Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton are the most successful F1 drivers at the Italian Grand Prix

Ascari only had a very brief spell as the most successful Formula 1 driver at the Italian Grand Prix with his successive victories. Juan Manuel Fangio took three wins in a row straight after the Italian’s triumphs. No driver has so far matched Fangio’s feat for winning three in a row.

Multiple drivers have matched Ascari’s feat for winning back-to-back Italian Grand Prix. Yet it was not a necessary achievement for Michael Schumacher during the German’s route to five Italian Grand Prix wins. Just Lewis Hamilton has so far also taken five Italian Grand Prix wins.

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Schumacher had to wait until the 1996 season to score his first Italian Grand Prix win, which also came after switching Benetton for Ferrari. But the German would enthral the Tifosi with wins in 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2006. He even won by 37.977s with a Ferrari one-two in 1998.

Hamilton also had to wait until the 2012 Italian Grand Prix to achieve the Britons’ first win at Monza. He had finished second in the 2007 running as a rookie with McLaren, but could not return to the rostrum before triumphing over Sergio Perez of Sauber by only 4.356s in 2012.

His route to matching Schumacher as a seven-time world champion also saw Hamilton claim further Italian Grand Prix wins with Mercedes in 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018 thanks to their early dominance of the V6 turbo-hybrid era – even beating Sebastian Vettel by 25s in 2015.

The Italian GP has seen 21 repeat winners as a Formula 1 race

Throughout the history of the Italian Grand Prix as a Formula 1 race, having been staged 19 times prior to the formation of the championship in 1950, 20 drivers have registered repeat wins. But no Italian has won their home Grand Prix more than twice over the Formula 1 era.

Ascari won his home race twice across the first three runnings of the F1 Italian GP, a feat no Italian driver has so far ever repeated. While Farina saw a home driver win the first running in 1950, Ludovico Scarfiotti in 1966 is the only other Italian to win his home Grand Prix to date.

Instead, the Italian Grand Prix has regularly proven to be a successful race for many British, German and Brazilian drivers. British drivers also won the Italian GP 11 times from 1956 to 1971, while German drivers later won the race 10 times at Monza between 1996 and 2016.

As well as being a four-time Italian Grand Prix winner, Nelson Piquet Sr further has claim to being the only Formula 1 driver to win the race when not held at Monza. The Brazilian took to the top step of the podium when Imola staged its only Italian Grand Prix to date in 1980.

Piquet Sr would go on to win the Italian GP three times at Monza later in the 1980s, as well, to be the most successful driver at the race before Schumacher and Hamilton arrived on the scene. Fangio sealed the honour first with the Argentine’s three Italian GP wins in the 1950s.