Realising the impossibility, from a technical angle, of running a race on the combined road and track at Monza, the past lessons having been absorbed, the Automobile Club of Italy decided to hold this year’s Grand Prix of Italy on the road circuit only. The last time this was done was in 1954, before the banked track was built, and then the circuit was slightly longer than it is at present, so that this year’s speeds represented an entirely new set of records.
Every year before Monza the two Italian teams have a try-out during the week before the race and prior to official practice beginning, and this year the 12-cylinder Maserati was the great hope, Behra and Fangio having been lapping in 1min 44 sec unofficially. When the official practice began at 3pm on the Friday afternoon, Maserati, Ferrari, Vanwall and all the private owners except the Centro-Sud pair were ready to go, and it was Schell who started things. He began lapping around 1min 48sec in one of the lightweight chassis six-cylinder cars, and then Brooks went out in one of the Vanwalls and very soon stirred things up by making a lap in 1min 45.6sec, shortly afterwards improving this to 1min 44.9sec.
The Scuderia Ferrari had their Lancia/Ferraris out and von Trips was having his first Grand Prix drive since his Nurburgring sports-car accident. As he was pushed off, fuel which had run down into the exhaust pipes ignited, and he was being wheeled along with sheets of flame belching out of the megaphones and looking highly dangerous until the engine fired and blew the flames out. After a lap or two he came in and Hawthorn took the car, lapping in 1min 47.1sec.
