STAT CORNER: Who is the most successful driver at the Italian Grand Prix?

With this weekend's Autodromo Internazionale Monza set to bring the European leg of the current season to a close, F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers some key stats related to the Italian Grand Prix.

This is the 75th year that Monza will host the Italian Grand Prix as a round of the Formula 1 World Championship. Although this is actually the 76th Italian Grand Prix, as for one year only, in 1980, the race was held in Imola. Even so, Monza tops the list of tracks that have hosted the most Grands Prix, ahead of Monaco and Silverstone.

An interesting “Italian” statistic concerning Monza is that it was the scene of the only race win for a Ferrari engine not fitted to a car built in Maranello. It happened in 2008 when Sebastian Vettel pulled off one of the most unexpected wins in the history of Formula 1 at the wheel of a Toro Rosso.

In fact, the Faenza-based team produced another surprise 12 years later, when under the name AlphaTauri, it won in Monza again, with Pierre Gasly at the wheel.

The Italian Grand Prix has decided the outcome of the Drivers’ world championship 11 times, in 1950, 1956, 1961, 1963, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1978 and 1979. For Jackie Stewart, it happened twice, the Scotsman crowned in 1969 and 1973.

Not only do two of the sports greats, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton, share the top of the table for world championship crowns, they are also the most successful drivers at Monza with five wins apiece. They both have eight podium finishes to their name, while the Englishman also has the most pole positions on seven.

Nelson Piquet is the most successful driver behind Schumacher and Hamilton. The Brazilian driver has won in Italy on four occasions, and he is the driver who won the only Italian Grand Prix that was not held at Monza.

There is a long list of drivers who have clinched three Italian Grand Prix victories – Juan Manuel Fangio, Stirling Moss, Ronnie Peterson, Alain Prost, Rubens Barrichello and Sebastian Vettel, whilst the list of two-time Italian GP winners includes Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Fernando Alonso, Juan Pablo Montoya, Ayrton Senna, Phil Hill, John Surtees, Jackie Stewart and Clay Regazzoni.

With twenty wins, Ferrari is the most successful team, almost a third of all the Italian races. It heads the fields for pole positions (23) and podium finishes (72).

McLaren is second in all three of these lists with 11 wins, 12 pole positions and 31 podium finishes, while Mercedes sit third in terms of most victories at the Italian Grand Prix.