Monza, Italy, September 6th.
After the sweeping victory in Austria the whole of Italy was behind Ferrari for the Italian Grand Prix, to be held over 68 laps of the Monza road circuit, and even on the day before official practice began there were enough spectators, to watch the testing that was going on, to keep a lot of race organisers happy. Ferrari had done all their pre-race testing the previous week, during which Giunti had had a nasty moment when a tyre deflated at full speed through the Ascari curve on the back of the circuit. Although the car was damaged it was mended in time for the official practice on the Friday before the race, so that the vast crowd that turned out to watch on the Thursday before race day had to be content with the BRM team, the new Tyrrell car, the Matra team and the BelIasi, with Stewart having to go in a works Matra-Simca V12. There were 28 entries on the official list and as the Italians are not party to the Geneva Agreement which guarantees 10 entries for named drivers, their accepted 20 cars for the Monza grid was to be the fastest 20 irrespective of name or stature; if you were fast enough you were in, if not you were out, World Champion or no World Champion. The Tyrrell Racing Organisation had entered Stewart in a March, entry number 18, and the new Tyrrell car, entry number 16, so that there were in fact 27 entries vying for the 20 places, and with the grid being a two-by-two affair, instead of the more usual three-two-three arrangement, battles for both ends of the grid could be expected to enliven practice.
Jochen Rindt was tragically killed in qualifying
