Italian GP 1953

Italian GP, 1953

The Ferrari versus Maserati battle continued at Monza although Ferrari's Alberto Ascari had already won the World Championship and Enzo Ferrari had announced that he was withdrawing his team from F1 at the end of the year. This did not stop him entering a pair of Type 553 prototypes for Umberto Maglioli and Piero Carini in addition to his usual team of Alberto Ascari, Gigi Villoresi, Giuseppe Farina and Mike Hawthorn. Maserati was still missing Froilan Gonzalez but ran Juan-Manuel Fangio, Onofre Marimon, Felice Bonetto and Emmanuel de Graffenried and a fifth car for youngsters Sergio Mantovani and Luigi Musso.

In practice Ascari took pole position with Fangio alongside him and Farina completing the front row, The second row of the 3-3-3 grid consisted of Marimon, Villoresi and Hawthorn with Bonetto and de Graffenried being split by Maurice Trintignant's Gordini on row three. Stirling Moss outqualified Maglioli and Mantovani in his Cooper-Alta but the car was still four seconds off the pace of Ascari.

The race saw Fangio make a bad start and so Ascari took off into the lead with Farina behind him. Halfway around the first lap Marimon took the lead from the two Ferraris and with Fangio catching up quickly a four-car slipstreaming battle developed. This would continue for most of the race although Marimon dropped away just after half distance with an radiator problem. He rejoined the race a long way behind but running with the leaders again. The leading trio and Marimon then came upon the dueling Hawthorn and Villoresi and although Hawthorn dropped quickly away there were five cars running together on the last lap.

At the last corner Ascari and Farina were side by side. Ascari spun, Farina went on to the grass to avoid his team mate but Ascari was hit by Marimon who had nowhere to go. Fangio dived through the carnage to win the race. Farina recovered to take second and Villoresi found himself in third place.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
1 50 Juan-Manuel Fangio Maserati A6GCM 80 2h49m45.900s  2 
2 6 Giuseppe Farina Ferrari 500 80 2h49m47.300s  3 
r 4 Alberto Ascari Ferrari 500 79 Accident 1 
3 2 Luigi Villoresi Ferrari 500 79  5 
4 8 Mike Hawthorn Ferrari 500 79  6 
5 36 Maurice Trintignant Gordini T16 79  8 
r 52 Felice Bonetto Maserati A6GCM 77 Out Of Fuel 7 
6 40 Roberto Mieres Gordini T16 77  16 
7= 56 Sergio Mantovani Maserati A6GCM   12 
7= 56 Luigi Musso Maserati A6GCM 76   
r 54 Onofre Marimon Maserati A6GCM 75 Accident 4 
8 10 Umberto Maglioli Ferrari 553 75  11 
9 38 Harry Schell Gordini T16 75  15 
10 32 Louis Chiron OSCA 20 72  25 
11 44 Prince Bira Maserati A6GCM 72  23 
r 58 Emmanuel de Graffenried Maserati A6GCM 70 Engine 9 
12 46 Alan Brown Cooper-Bristol T23 70  24 
13 28 Stirling Moss Cooper-Alta T23 70  10 
14 48 Hans Stuck AFM-Bristol  67  29 
15 16 Yves Giraud-Cabantous HWM-Alta (53) 67  28 
16 64 Louis Rosier Ferrari 500 65  17 
nc 20 Jack Fairman Connaught-Lea Francis A 61  22 
nc 30 Ken Wharton Cooper-Bristol T23 57  19 
nc 24 Kenneth McAlpine Connaught-Lea Francis A 56  18 
r 12 Piero Carini Ferrari 553 40 Engine 20 
r 22 Roy Salvadori Connaught-Lea Francis A 33 Throttle Linkage 14 
r 42 Chico Landi Maserati A6GCM 18 Engine 21 
r 34 Elie Bayol OSCA 20 17 Engine 13 
r 18 John Fitch HWM-Alta (53) 14 Engine 26 
r 26 Johnny Claes Connaught-Lea Francis A 7 Fuel Line 30 
r 14 Lance Macklin HWM-Alta (53) 6 Engine 27