Monza bets on its future
The firm and decisive tone of someone who cares about the Monza Grand Prix. The clear, sometimes harsh words of someone who feels he has very few allies in the most important of all battles: giving the Temple of Speed a future in Formula 1 even after 2025, the year when the current contract with Formula 1 expires.
On the occasion of the presentation of the Monza calendar for the 2023 season, Angelo Sticchi Damiani shared his thoughts on the working process carried out at Monza in an interview with the press: these are structural and functional investments, but above all a bet for the future. If the Autodrome doesn’t take a major step forward, the Formula 1 renewal won’t come: he didn’t say it explicitly, but the president of the ACI Federation – Automobile Club d’Italia – made it clear.
The comments of Sticchi Damiani
“We have to keep up with Formula 1: we are facing a challenge, which is to go beyond 2025 with a new contract. Normally contracts are discussed at least two years in advance, but to do this we must have what it takes, and be able to show with facts that this great effort is being made and that it will certainly be done in time for 2024. The challenge is huge, because it is said that Europe has too many GPs, there are requests from America, Asia and now also from Africa: we are surrounded, therefore we must be really good and credible. We have moved with great commitment, 44 million have been invested, an enormous sum and a heavy commitment. And last year, which was extraordinary, we still lost money. Not a lot, but we have lost some, because the racetrack has a very high running cost, regardless of the Grand Prix.” – Angelo Sticchi Damiani pointed out.
“I believe that Automobile Club d’Italia has made a significant effort, but our budget is starting to have difficulties. We have renounced the ordinary regional contribution of five million euros a year, which has been transformed into funding for the working process. We have renounced the contribution to the organization, and this weighs heavily: this year too we will put five million of our budget towards organizing the GP. We do it because we believe in it, because Italy cannot fail to have its Grand Prix at Monza, but we have reached the limit. We need someone to realize what happened and what is about to happen, because we can’t do it alone anymore”. Then, expressing his concerns, he added: “We have made a miracle in having two races until 2025. It takes great optimism to think that after 2025 Italy can have two GPs”.
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Frictions with the Municipality
A clear sign and a cry for help that Sticchi Damiani wanted to point out primarily to the press, so that it may be heard by those institutions that he feels distant (“But not the local authorities, which have been close”). The question of the three grandstands that the Municipality wanted to demolish, and that the Lombardy Regional Administrative Court saved with a postponement, has left obvious aftermaths.
And now Sticchi Damiani sends the ball to the other field: “There are four projects, two definitive – asphalt and underpasses – and two of feasibility – grandstands and coverage of the paddock club. Yesterday morning the project to renovate the asphalt of the track was delivered, between today and tomorrow we will have the definitive project for the underpasses, which are necessary and indispensable because in the flow of the public we cannot have promiscuity between pedestrians and cars. We expect quick approval and that the tender proceed quickly and in the right way, otherwise we risk making the situation worse. I hope that the services conference will start within weeks, then there will be the tenders”.
In terms of time and cost estimations, Sticchi Damiani has no definite answers: “When the work is handed over to the company, we’ll talk about the calendar, and at that point it will be easy to understand if it’s possible to do them before or immediately after the Grand Prix. But what we have to demonstrate to Stefano Domenicali and to Formula 1 is that we are proceeding in a serious and concrete manner. We did what we had to do, now the rest is all done by procedures” – the president of the ACI Federation concluded.
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