⚡ UPDATE, evening of September 6, 2026: he did it. From 19th on the grid, through a red flag and an overtake on lap 50 — the Monza curse is lifted, 60 years and two days later. Epilogue at the end.
The hook. A fresh F1 digest had a brief mention of Antonelli and "Monza's 60-year curse." Throwaway piece: grid penalty, "curse," that's it. But I went to check the numbers — a habit there's no cure for — and it turned out the "curse" isn't a fancy journalistic flourish but an actual hole in the statistics you can measure in decades if you want. Four Italian podiums in 59 years. Last one twenty years ago. And one more detail that turned curiosity into research: the anniversary hits literally now, this weekend, 60 years and two days after that very victory. And the only person capable of breaking the curse starts from the back of the pack because he himself torched his chance — by changing his engine. This kind of drama doesn't write itself.
Let's start with cold arithmetic, because it's worse than any legend.
The Autodromo Monza has hosted the Italian Grand Prix since 1922 — it's the oldest temple of speed, older than the world championship itself. Formula 1's record books show 75 victories on this track, and exactly four of them are Italian:
After September 4, 1966 — silence. Not "few wins," but zero. Italian victories in Formula 1 didn't end there — 25 more happened after that date: Brambilla, Patrese, de Angelis, Alboreto, Nannini, Fisichella, Trulli, and now Antonelli this season. But at Monza — not one. Italy — a country where motorsport is religion — hasn't seen one of its drivers win the home Grand Prix in six decades. Ferrari added 20 more Monza wins to its tally during this time (most recent: Leclerc, 2024), but behind the wheel sat Schumacher, Barrichello, Alonso, Leclerc — citizens of Germany, Brazil, Monaco. The irony is that the only team carrying the burden of Italian hopes for decades chose winners by criteria other than passport.
Now about "somebody must have at least finished well." Italian podiums at Monza after 1966: four. Second and third places for Alboreto (1984, 1988), Patrese (1984), and Fisichella (2005). Pole positions: Patrese-83 and Teo Fabi-86 — both failed to convert. All Italian hope across 59 years fits into one short paragraph.
Why it happened this way is a separate and instructive story. No point mixing "curse" with mysticism: the mechanics are more prosaic and scarier. Two lines converged into one vortex. First: the best Italian drivers of those years — Scarfiotti, Bandini — were dying, and Ferrari, having lost first Surtees, then Bandini at Monaco-67, started getting cautious with countrymen. Second: sports economics. By 2012, there wasn't a single Italian driver in Formula 1 at all — no budgets, no sponsorship programs, and "home" seats in teams don't exist: you pay for a grid slot in convertible currency, not with a passport. The Monza curse isn't demons or track geometry. It's just sixty years during which Italy never grew a winner-level driver — or couldn't put one in a winner-level car.
Scarfiotti's story is about how a man who won a Grand Prix entered history not for his career, but for its absence.
He was born in 1933 in Turin — and you couldn't be born more "right" for motorsport. His grandfather, also Ludovico (with one "o" in the name — the family wrote it sometimes "Lodovico," sometimes "Ludovico," and he himself never settled on a final version), was Fiat's first president. His cousin — Gianni Agnelli, master of the empire. You'd think the path was clear. But his background became his curse: Ludovico was terrified of being labeled a "rich amateur" racing for pleasure. The press stung him with comparisons to Bandini — a man who clawed his way up from nothing, no money. He wanted to prove he was a professional. Spent his whole life proving it.
And he proved it where no one else was looking. Formula 1 for Scarfiotti wasn't the main stage. His element was everything else: hillclimbs, where he twice took the European championship title (1962, 1965), flying up Mont Ventoux and Schauinsland serpentines in a Ferrari Dino; endurance marathons, where he won Le Mans (1963, with Bandini behind the wheel of a 250P) and Sebring (also 1963, paired with John Surtees); the Nürburgring 1000km, which he took in 1964 and 1965. Of ten Grand Prix Formula 1 starts — six for Ferrari, three for Cooper, one for Anglo American Racers — none became home comfort for him. The Formula 1 cockpit wasn't his comfort zone. His comfort zone was all the rest of motorsport.
And then there was one day — September 4, 1966, Monza.
The 66 race itself deserves a novel. The season was already decided: Brabham with revolutionary Repco V8s took the title, Ferrari looked colorful but not mechanically dominant. Inside Maranello — a smoldering scandal: Surtees, 1964 world champion, clashed with sporting director Eugenio Dragoni (who managed to accuse him of spying for Lola), and Enzo Ferrari kicked "Son of the Wind" out right before Le Mans. Surtees defected to Cooper-Maserati and came to Monza for revenge. Ferrari had a trio: Mike Parkes, Scarfiotti, Bandini. At the briefing, Dragoni announces team tactics that make Parkes's fan heart sink: polesitter Parkes is designated "loyal lieutenant" who must protect the Italians. Bandini — lead, Scarfiotti — backup.
Bandini wins the start — and stops on lap two: fuel leak. Scarfiotti drops to seventh (second gear problems) — and begins an odyssey. He methodically claws position after position, and his duel with Jochen Rindt is an episode Monza remembered for decades. By lap twelve he's in the lead. Ginther in the new V12 Honda crashes at Curva Grande (got away with a collarbone), Surtees retires with fuel, Brabham with oil. Finish: Scarfiotti first, Parkes second, Hulme third. Ferrari takes Monza 1-2. Papers run headlines "Great day for Italian sport" — same day as Ottoz winning the hurdles sprint in Budapest and Italian cyclists taking gold in Frankfurt. Scarfiotti becomes a national hero.
And here's where it gets most bitter. Victory turned out to be the peak, not a springboard. In 1967, Ferrari gives him essentially one race opportunity — and that's Syracuse, not counting for the championship: there he and Parkes finish nose to nose, deliberately drawing their cars even at the finish line. This wasn't a podium, it was a requiem: they split the victory in half in memory of Bandini, killed at Monaco a month earlier. "Although I came to Formula 1 relatively late, I didn't disgrace myself and even won the Italian Grand Prix. I believed I could defend this victory in 1967... Instead I was given virtually no chance to prepare, and was deeply disappointed to have been effectively forced to leave Ferrari" — that's how Scarfiotti later described his departure. Enzo Ferrari wrote back about "style incompatibility with the refinement Formula 1 demands," and mentioned a letter from Gianni Agnelli, worried his cousin might crash. Who Maranello actually drove away — a disappointed driver or nervous relatives — no one knows. One thing's certain: at Monza-67 Scarfiotti arrived not in a Ferrari but an Eagle — he'd never see Maranello's winning car again.
In 1968 he raced for Cooper in Formula 1 and for Porsche in the hills. June 8, 1968 — Rossfeld hillclimb near Berchtesgaden, practice in a Porsche 910. The car goes off the road down a forested slope, the driver is thrown from the cockpit, injuries catastrophic. He dies in the ambulance — 34 years old. Causes never established: investigators have only a black mark on the asphalt, no trace of any attempt to catch the slide. Main theory remains steering failure — at the previous round in Spain, Porsches already "caught" exactly this problem. One of motorsport's most piercing unsolved paradoxes: a man who lived his life in the mountains and endurance marathons crashed precisely where he was strongest of all.
I don't want to arrange his life into a neat arc — it doesn't need it. He's not a "truncated career," not "what might have been." He was a master of all his sport's genres in an era when a champion could win Le Mans, a Grand Prix, and a hillclimb in one season — and somehow not lose his mind. And Monza remained his only Grand Prix. There's something almost artistic about it: a man who won only once, but forever — in his country's heart, in the heart of its religion. And then for sixty years no one could even repeat it.
In 2019, Mercedes-AMG Petronas made a move that looked like PR then but looks like the best scouting forecast in Formula 1 history today: the team signed eleven-year-old Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Not "potential prospect," not a marketing project — just a bet on a kid from Bologna who by then was already crushing junior championships.
Mercedes then built his career as a multi-stage project: championship in Italian karting, domination in European and world junior series, and then — a decision that made motorsport nerds' hearts skip: skip Formula 3 and put the teenager straight into a Formula 2 car with Prema. And since Antonelli, to get into F1 right at legal age, needed a super licence, FIA cooperated: the superlicence age limit was lowered from 18 to 17. Formally — "responding to requests," actually — for a specific person. Toto Wolff didn't hide that he was considering him as a candidate for Hamilton's seat.
Antonelli's first acquaintance with Monza behind a Formula 1 wheel came a year before his championship debut — and immediately showed both the price and speed of this project. August 2024, eighteen years old, first Grand Prix weekend session behind the W15: ten minutes in, Antonelli catches the car at Parabolica and slams into the barrier with a crash. Impact — 52g. He walks out himself, apologizes to the team and Russell, eaten out of FP2 time for repairs — and says words better than any biography: "Just a mistake on my side, I was pushing too hard for those conditions. Lesson learned." Wolff on camera: "We have all this fuss and noise of Monza here: Italian boy, first time in a Mercedes... But if he wants to become a champion — he needs to learn to deal with it. And I have no doubt he can."
He got through the 2025 debut, and turned the 2026 season from "promise" to "statement." By Monza-2026, Antonelli is championship leader (242 points, 59 ahead of Russell and Hamilton), with six wins in ten races: Shanghai, Suzuka, Miami, Montreal, Monaco, and Spa. He's twenty. He's Italian. He's going to the home Grand Prix. Everything aligns — except one "but."
Mercedes confirms: at Monza he's taking a new engine — and that's a grid penalty, back rows. A curse that stood for 60 years, ready to break, demands not just victory from the hero, but a comeback through the entire pack on a track where overtaking is one hell of a lottery. History itself seems to be testing his strength before handing over the keys to the legend.
Sure, you could say: well 60 years, statistics, coincidence. But this story has three layers that make it more than a sports anecdote.
First — sociological. Monza is a mirror of how Italy stopped being a motorsport superpower. In the 50s, Italians flooded the grid, Ferrari set the tone, "Scuderia" was a national project. By 2012, there wasn't a single Italian in the championship — not one. The Monza curse isn't corner geometry, it's economics: Formula 1 became a sport where seats are bought, not earned by national talent. Antonelli is the first Italian in a long time to return to F1 through the classic "old Italy" trajectory — not through family money, not through a sponsorship check, but through a factory junior academy. And in this sense, his Monza victory would be not just a sporting event — it would close the gestalt of an entire era: that Italy can still produce champions, not just sell tickets to the Autodromo.
Second — dramatic. The numbers beg to be included. Scarfiotti won Monza September 4, 1966 — his only Grand Prix in life. Antonelli could win it September 6, 2026 — 60 years and two days later, in his second Formula 1 season, at twenty. One — heir to the Fiat empire, who spent his life proving he wasn't a "rich amateur"; the other — son of a Mercedes dealership, signed to the project at eleven and put in a cockpit at eighteen. One — a triumphant driver his own team didn't let develop; the other — a triumphant driver his own team puts in an underdog position. Monza has been waiting for a new Italian winner for 60 years and two days — and by irony of fate, the only way to honor Scarfiotti's memory is to win exactly where he won. Coincidence, if you like. But if it happens — it'll be a coincidence at the level of "series finale the writers wouldn't have dared write."
Third — fatalistic. Motorsport loves rhymes but doesn't love promises. Scarfiotti won Monza on his best day and left life 21 months later, never getting a second attempt. The superlicence age limit was lowered for a specific person — and he justified the bet, but sporting fate is notoriously nonlinear: he already hit the Monza barrier at 52g when he was eighteen. No one knows if he'll get another chance — Monza-2026 could be not the beginning of an era but the only window. The curse isn't a spell, it's accumulated statistics of missed chances: Bandini's chance was taken by death, Scarfiotti's by Maranello politics, Patrese's and Fabi's by mechanics, a whole generation's by lack of cars. Now it's Antonelli's turn. He's already tried the barrier. All that's left is to try first place.
Conclusions. My take: curses don't exist — structural conditions exist that get called curses when you're tired of counting. Italy's "Monza curse" is an honest, beautiful, and bitter illustration of how motorsport over 60 years transformed from national romanticism into global business: a grid slot now costs money, not a passport, and Italy, which gave the sport Ferrari and Monza, turned out economically unprepared for this conversion. Antonelli isn't "the chosen one," but a perfect coincidence of rare circumstances: talent, factory academy, superlicence by individual quota, and — most important — a car capable of winning. Can he break the curse precisely on September 6, starting from the back? Head says: slim chances, Monza doesn't forgive back-of-grid starts. But heart suggests: if you're going to break a 60-year drought — do it on the anniversary, at twenty, on home turf, starting from the back row. If not him — then it's unclear who and when. And let the marketers correct me: you can't plan this kind of coincidence, you can only earn it.
It happened. And in a way that makes my "dramatic layer" above look like timid caution.
Act-by-act breakdown. Qualifying: pole — Gasly (Alpine), first since 2019; Antonelli seventh before penalty, on the grid — 19th. Start: Leclerc and Hamilton on softs, both Mercedes on mediums. Already on lap two, Leclerc, fighting off Piastri, clips the drain on the Parabolica exit — and at full speed slams into the barrier. Barrier in splinters, red flag, thirty minutes of repairs. The race Pirelli forecast as a one-stop turns into poker: after the restart everyone was allowed to change tires, and Antonelli went on mediums — while front-runners took hards. What followed was fifty laps of chess: Leclerc out, Stroll stalled under VSC, Russell and Verstappen both took turns leading, Antonelli after his second pit stop returned to the podium zone and on fresh rubber was chasing his teammate, whose hards were "opening up" at the end. First attack on lap 49 — missed, into the gravel. Second, on lap 50 — clean as a textbook overtake lecture. Finish: Antonelli, Russell (+3.857), Verstappen (+14.718), Norris, Piastri. Hamilton sixth, Gasly from pole seventh.
Three lines of statistics that would have given Scarfiotti words, and me — none. First since 1983 — since John Watson in Detroit — to win starting from 19th position or worse. First Italian winner of the home Grand Prix in 60 years — since Scarfiotti September 4, 1966. And seventh win of the season, while Leclerc, third in the championship, again didn't finish his home race. Lead over Russell after Monza — 66 points with eleven rounds left in the season. The 60-year-and-two-day curse was broken by a twenty-year-old guy who started last among those who finished — or rather, almost last: behind him remained only those who retired or went a lap down.
You know what's most beautiful? In the original version of this text was a paragraph about "the only window" and cautious "if you're going to break a 60-year drought — do it on the anniversary." Everything I wrote then about "slim chances, Monza doesn't forgive back-of-grid starts" — brilliantly disproved by the research subject himself. Monza, it turns out, forgives everything — if you have speed, fresh tires against their worn ones, and the audacity to attack your teammate in a battle for first place on home turf. Scarfiotti waited for an heir sixty years and two days. The heir was two minutes late by his own schedule — and arrived exactly on time.