Five Things to Know About the 2025 Italian GP

From the Dutch dunes to the Italian Temple of Speed, Formula One's doubleheader to end the summer break is taking us to distinctly different circuits.

It's Monza, one of the most recognisable and iconic tracks in motorsport coming up this weekend, and it's a track that we have done well in recent years.

There's a lot of history around Monza and the Italian GP, and we've got five things for you to know ahead of the Sunday's race.

Italy is alongside Britain, Belgium, and Monaco as one of the contemporary Grand Prix locations we still visit that featured on the first F1 calendar in 1950.

While much is made of Silverstone hosting the first-ever race back then, Monza was the first circuit to hold a championship finale.

Nino Farina, Juan Manuel Fangio, and Luigi Fagioli were all in contention for the title back then, with Farina sitting P3 in the standings behind his two Alfa Romeo teammates.

The four-point deficit from Fangio in P1 to Farina had the Argentinian looking most likely to take the crown, but fate had other ideas.

Farina won the race ahead of the No48 Ferrari and teammate Fagioli to become champion after Fangio retired... twice!

Fangio's gearbox gave way on Lap 23, and the engine on Piero Taruffi's Alfa Romeo, which Fangio commandeered over after first retiring, died on Lap 34.

There was a small mercy for Fangio, though. He scored the Fastest Lap point to nudge his season's tally up by one.

Alessandro Giusti will race in Formula 3 for the final time in 2025 this Sunday as the 10-round championship concludes.

Most of the series' races come in Europe, and Sandro has faced a condensed season since his debut in Melbourne.

It's the eighth race weekend in four months, and he'll be hoping to end on a high and advance further up the 2025 standings. There are two podium trips in his season so far, and he'll look to grab one more trophy in Italy

Luke Browning and Victor Martins are also in action as F2 returns, too. You can read all about what the three Atlassian Williams Driver Academy representatives have got in store in our Monza Academy preview.

Monza has been a circuit that has suited the Williams cars of recent years, and we'll be hoping to keep up a run of point-scoring finishes on Sunday.

Alex took a P9 finish last year, and grabbed P7 back in 2023. Debutant Nyck de Vries turned heads with a P9 finish in 2022, too.

George Russell's two zero-point seasons with Williams ended in 2021, with Italy adding a P9 to his scoreboard as he made it four top-10 finishes in five rounds.

Lance Stroll, Nico Hulkenberg, Bruno Senna, Valtteri Bottas, and Felipe Massa all scored points in Williams overalls through the 2010s, too.

Felipe even made it a brace of podium finishes with two P3 results in 2014 and 2015 after switching from Ferrari to Williams.

If you ever visit Milan, be sure to take in a tour of the Monza circuit on your Italian itinerary to truly understand how steep the old curved banking was.

The iconic banked corners, which can form an oval, were first raced on in F1 back in 1955... but it wasn't in an oval configuration.

Monza still had its "shoe" shape layout that we see today, but it combined with the two banked corners to form a track that had it all.

After what would look like a normal lap today (minus the chicanes), the cars would race back alongside the pit straight at what is now the exit of Parabolica.

Instead of heading around for another lap, though the drivers would hit the banking close to where Variante del Rettifilo now is and loop back around.

A high-speed run back towards Parabolica ended the lap with a final banked corner, and the drivers would do it all again for 49 more laps to hit a 500km distance.

Colombia saw its flag raised onto the winner's spot on the F1 podium for the very first time in 2001 as Juan Pablo Montoya took his first of seven Grand Prix victories.

In a rookie season that was very much feast or famine for JPM, he ended his year on a high, taking pole and the win in Italy in Round 15/17 with his Williams FW23.

He'd retire from 11 races that year, and took podium finishes at four of the six rounds he did finish, but Italy was his only victory to truly elevate his name as one of F1's brightest talents.

Starting from P1, he held off the charge from the two Ferraris behind, but would drop behind Rubens Barrichello as the race progressed. Switching to a one-stop strategy helped regain the lead after a problematic pit stop for Rubens.

JPM took the flag, with Williams teammate Ralf Schumacher securing P3 to make the moment even more special as the team celebrated victory with a double-podium finish.