At first glance I thought it was sunny on the Monza banking, and cloudy on the straight—but of course that straight line separating the two shows how ridiculous I was. Then it occurred to me that this dramatic shift in color is the transition from the concrete surface of the banking to the asphalt surface of the start-finish straight. Quite an abrupt transition that must have been felt by the drivers coming out of the extreme suspension distress and jarring bumps between sections of the banking.
0 replies on “Just One More Thing to Make the Monza Banking More Treacherous.”
Great photo and as you say quite a difference in the surface. I never quite understood how they used both parts of the track simultaneously on the old Monza circuit. Are the cars coming off the banking going to converge with those coming out of the corner lower down? Lovely blog by the way.
Duncan:
No convergence. Easiest way to describe the traffic pattern at “Big Monza” is this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Monza_1955.jpg
The cars coming off the south banking of the old oval course headed out onto today’s F1 course, passed under the north banking, and headed into the north banking after passing the pits. The pit straight and the “front straight” were side-by-side, but separate parts of the racecourse (with no dividing wall).