Monza

What you'll find

Monza is the odd one out on the calendar because it rewards the exact opposite of everywhere else. Cornering grip isn't king here — top speed is, and that forces you to build the car in a way that suits no other track: wings on minimum, suspension soft enough to swallow the enormous chicane kerbs, and brakes ready to haul you from 340 to 80 km/h three times a lap. In Assetto Corsa EVO you feel the difference from your first run: the car is blisteringly quick in a straight line and moves around far more than you're used to the moment you touch the brake.

Monza is driven with downforce on minimum, and that changes the whole car. You fly down the straight and then arrive at the Variante del Rettifilo with a car that brakes worse and moves more than you expect. Running straight on at the first chicane is the most repeated mistake of the opening lap.

The Lesmos and Ascari are what separate people: they demand confidence with very little downforce and punish oversteer the moment you get on the throttle. The Parabolica opens up on exit, so sacrificing entry to be fired down the main straight almost always pays.

Sector by sector

How the lap unfolds from start to finish, with the lines and the places where time is genuinely won and lost.

How to set the car up

Monza is run with downforce on minimum, and you have to accept what that means: the car turns in worse, brakes worse and moves more. Plenty of people bolt on more wing than they should because it feels comfortable, then spend the race watching everyone go by on the straights. The practical test is simple: if you get passed in the tow with no answer, you're carrying too much wing.

The suspension has to swallow the kerbs. All three chicanes are taken riding the inside kerb, and a very stiff car skips and loses the rear exactly as you get on the power. Here it's worth going softer than the telemetry suggests and accepting a little roll in exchange for being able to use the kerbs.

The brakes are the other critical area. Three very heavy stops a lap, from maximum speed, with little downforce helping you slow down. In long races you have to watch temperature and wear, and the bias usually sits slightly further forward than elsewhere to steady the entry to the chicanes.

What almost everyone gets wrong

1. Overshooting the Rettifilo. The number one first-lap mistake. You arrive in the tow, your usual reference no longer applies and you swallow the chicane. Brake at your own marker even if it feels early.
2. Running too much wing. It gives confidence in the corners and condemns you on the straights. At Monza it's better to feel slightly uncomfortable through Ascari than to be passed helplessly three times a lap.
3. Jumping the chicane kerbs. Monza's kerbs are tall. You ride the inside of them in a controlled way; taking them whole at full speed unsettles the car and, in a race, breaks suspension.
4. Missing Ascari's second apex. Almost everyone concentrates on the entry. But the one that matters is the second change of direction, because your speed down the whole back straight depends on it.
5. Arriving too fast at the Parabolica. It's long and it opens: a fast entry feels great and ruins the exit. And the exit is worth a kilometre of straight.

From the real circuit to Assetto Corsa EVO

The Monza park, scanned

Monza is an old circuit with uneven asphalt, and that's exactly what a laser scan captures and an approximate model misses. The joints in the surface, the bumps on the exit of the Roggia and the precise height of the kerbs — very tall and very distinctive — are all measured, which is why the car behaves differently here than at a modern track in the same game.

Photogrammetry of the surroundings adds what makes Monza recognisable: the woodland of the royal park, the main grandstands and, above all, the remains of the banked oval that cross the current layout and are still there, abandoned, in the game as in reality.

What carries over well

The braking references. The distance boards at the Rettifilo are the same and in the same place, and anyone who learns to brake at the 100-metre board in the sim can use exactly that reference in real life. With a circuit of only eight corners, that correspondence is almost total.

The setup concept, too. Monza's logic — trading grip for top speed — is identical in both worlds, and it's one of the few places where a fan can genuinely understand why teams bring a specific configuration here that they use at no other race all year.

What doesn't carry over

The feel of the Rettifilo braking zone. Going from 340 to 80 km/h subjects the body to brutal deceleration, and that force is the information telling a driver how late they can go. Without it, in the sim you brake by visual reference and repetition, which works, but isn't the same thing.

Nor the noise or the vibration. Monza is famous for how it sounds, and riding the chicane kerbs is felt through the whole car. A good force feedback wheel gets you reasonably close, but the hard thump of the kerb is one of those things you only understand on track.

Preparing a visit to Monza

If you're going to drive there, the sim gets you arriving already knowing where the eight corners are and how they link, which is an afternoon's work. What's worth practising is something else: managing the tow and the discipline of braking at your own marker, because in a session with mixed traffic the temptation to go deeper behind another car is enormous.

And if you're going as a spectator, bear in mind the atmosphere is part of the circuit. Monza in September, with the crowd invading the straight when the race ends, is an experience with nothing in common with watching it on television.

Where it comes from

Built in 1922 in the royal park of Monza, it's one of the oldest permanent circuits still in use. The remains of the 1955 banked oval are still standing, abandoned since the sixties and visible from the current layout.

It has hosted the Italian Grand Prix almost without interruption since the first world championship. The current chicanes were added to rein in top speeds the original layout could no longer safely sustain.

Visiting the real circuit

Monza sits inside a public park on the outskirts of Milan, and that's its great oddity: you can walk around inside the grounds on almost any day. The circuit runs track days for private drivers for much of the year, as well as club events and vehicle testing.

What almost nobody expects is that you can walk on the abandoned 1955 banked oval. It's still standing, cracked and with grass between the joints, and it's probably the most striking thing any European circuit offers a visitor.

The big date is the Italian Grand Prix in September, with an atmosphere unlike anywhere else on the calendar. It's also one of the most expensive and crowded weekends: to enjoy it in peace, the World Endurance Championship or GT World Challenge rounds are far better value. [Confirm dates and tickets on the circuit's official website.]

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