The Monza Curse

Posted on September 15, 2022 | by Lydia Angel-Fox

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As some of you may know, the Monza curse remains alive and well. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, the Monza curse predicts that the previous year's Monza Grand Prix winner will DNF at the following year's Monza Grand Prix.

The Monza curse can be traced back to 2019 when Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc came first at the Monza Grand Prix but retired in the 2020 Grand Prix, following a nasty shunt while driving around the famous Parabolica.

Pierre Gasly with AlphaTauri was the surprise victor of the 2020 Monza Grand Prix, a well-deserved victory having been dropped from RedBull Racing and suffering the death of his longtime friend, Antoine Hubert, only a year prior. However, he too suffered the same fate as Leclerc the following year at the 2021 Monza Grand Prix, where the AlphaTauri driver's race ended before it even began, thus becoming the 2nd driver to succumb to the Monza curse.

With Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton taking each other out in a spectacular crash at the 2021 Monza Grand Prix, Daniel Ricciardo from McLaren drove home to victory, claiming his first (and possibly only win) with McLaren, and their first win since 2012. But he too would fall victim to the Monza curse, as we saw last weekend when Ricciardo retired on lap 47 of the 2022 Monza Grand Prix.

We now wait for next year to see if the Monza curse will claim its next victim, Max Verstappen who drove a mighty race from P7 to P1 and claimed his third victory in a row since the start of the second half of the 2022 season.