1962 Italian Grand Prix

This year the Automobile Club of Milan made two major changes to the Italian Grand Prix, both of them admirable ones. The first was to abandon the concrete banked track and hold the Grand Prix on the road circuit only and the second was to increase the race length to almost 500 kilometres. A total of 31 cars was accepted for the qualifying sessions, of which 22 were to form the grid, these being the fastest during practice.

The Ferrari team were out in force, with Phil Hill, Baghetti, Bandini, Rodriguez and Mairesse but they had nothing new in the way of cars, the best effort being the lightweight car which appeared at Nurburgring. The rest comprised two normal 120-degree-engined cars, one old 65-degree-engined car, and the interim 1962 model with central gearbox that Phil Hill drove at Aintree. There were three brand new cars at the factory with rear suspension like a Lotus but a major error had been committed in copying the geometry and there was not time to correct it, so these cars had to be left behind. The BRM team were well prepared, with cars for Graham Hill and Ginther and a third car as spare, and they all arrived at Monza early and got in some unofficial practice the day before the meeting began, Ferrari also having spent a lot of time going round the circuit earlier in the week.

Porsche also had three cars, Gurney on the newest one, and they had an interesting modification to the cooling-fan drive, incorporating a thermostatically controlled clutch-cum-freewheel so that at maximum speed the drive to the fan could be disengaged, leaving the impeller windmilling at maximum rpm and saving all the power losses involved in the drive. Bonnier was on the second car and the third was a spare.