The Monza Curse, Broken
And a closer look at why we’re so obsessed with motorsport’s curses and superstitions
Upon reaching the checkered flag in Monza, Max Verstappen had not only broken the record for most consecutive race victories of any Formula 1 driver.
Verstappen, having won the Italian Grand Prix two years in a row, also broke the Monza Curse, a superstition born in 2020 after Charles Leclerc won the race in 2019 and DNFed the next year. Since then, the unfortunate pattern curse emerged: Pierre Gasly won the Italian Grand Prix in 2020 and retired in 2021; Daniel Ricciardo won in 2021 and DNFed in 2022.
On the brink of Verstappen’s historic run of victories ahead of the Italian Grand Prix, the Monza Curse was on the minds of many. Combined with a pacy Ferrari on their home turf, the stage seemed set for Monza to be our best chance at hearing another fucking national anthem this season..
Alas, Max has broken both a record and a curse.
Is Verstappen simply at the top of his game, or is there more sorcery at play? Fans of 2016 F1 champion and monster-antibody enjoyer Nico Rosberg may be familiar with the curse he inadvertently (?) places upon drivers when he takes a selfie in front of their garages.
Ahead of the Italian Grand Prix, Rosberg posted this selfie with tifosi and just hours later, Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz and Leclerc, who started the race P1 and P3, respectively, finished P3 and P4.
Casting aside the logical and no-fun explanation of Red Bull dominance, we must ask the clear question at hand: Is the power of Rosberg’s divination more powerful than the Monza Curse?
I’ve talked about F1’s curses and uncanny patterns before, but it’s worth taking a broader look. With the sheer number of statistics in the sport, there’s bound to be bizarre and coincidental patterns and connections, and even with our own self-awareness that these curses and superstitions are really just fodder for memes and gossip, they persist in the sport anyway.
Before the Monza Curse and Nico’s curse, before the internet and social media disseminated and analyzed these patterns with such vigor, superstitions still pervaded F1.
Paranoia around the use of the number 13 on race cars, for example, has existed long before F1. Though 13 was used on race cars through the 1920s, the practice promptly stopped after driver Paul Torchy died in 1925, and driver Giulio Masetti had a fatal crash the year after. Thirteen was used only sparsely in F1 — by Moises Solana in 1963 and in 1976 by Divina Galica.
Most recently, Pastor Maldondo used the number 13 in Formula 1 from 2014-’15 when he raced with Lotus, though his reputation, uh, preceded him.
But perhaps lesser known is the ban of the number 17 on Italian race cars. The Roman numerals of 17 can be rearranged from “XVII” to "VIXI," meaning "my life is over” in Latin.
The racing number was retired in 2014 after Jules Bianchi, who raced with the number 17, died following a crash in Suzuka. (The tragedy was, rightly so, not widely associated with the superstition.)
This year, there are still other whispers ‘round the paddock. No driver has won a grand prix after 300 race starts, a curse that Fernando Alonso (with 369 starts) and Lewis Hamilton (324 starts) are both trying to break.
Leclerc has yet to win his home race at Monaco in any racing series: He didn’t even see the checkered flag for a grand prix until 2022, when he finished P4. He finished P6 in 2023. It’s one of the worst home race records since Brazilian driver Rubens Barrichello was on the grid. At Barrichello’s home grand prix, he had the following record from 1993-2011: DNF, P4, DNF, DNF, DNF, DNF, DNF, DNF, DNF, DNF, DNF, P3, P6, P7, DNF, P15, P8, P14, P14. Consistency is key!
To counter any bad luck on track, racers have done all they can to reverse their fortunes through idiosyncratic behaviors: David Coulthard had a pair of lucky underwear he wore before races. Alexander Wurz wore different colored racing boots on either foot. Stefano Modena wore his racing gloves inside out.
For anyone in the paddock, eating shelled peanuts has been banned (and not even out of sensitivity to those with nut allergies!). In the 1937 race at the Langhorne Speedway in Pennsylvania, peanut shells were found scattered by a crash that injured two drivers and numerous spectators. In Nashville that same year, peanut shells appeared near the site of a crash that killed one driver. It has never been confirmed that the shells caused either of the crashes, but their mere presence near the sites of both accidents were enough to ban the selling of the snack at motorsport events. Eating shelled peanuts is ostensibly fine, I guess.
There’s a lifetime's worth of articles to be written that debunk or verify each curse and superstition in the sport, but I’m more interested in what the interest in curses and superstitions mean. For drivers, superstitions can be ways to feel more in control of their fortunes when they are cast in environments, such as races, where so much is out of their control. Conversely, the creation of curses can provide excuses or explanations for why drivers aren’t performing in the way fans want them to.
In a season so strongly defined by Verstappen’s domination, the Monza Curse became a way to raise hopes for a Ferrari victory without outright wishing for it. Especially after Ferrari’s struggles this season, there was plenty of anticipation surrounding the team’s performance ahead of their home race, but so much hesitation to outright wish for their success.
Invoking curses can provide a logic to help us recover from the misfortunes of our favorite drivers. In the case of Ferrari, who have the reputation of absolutely screwing themselves at every turn, of course we’d turn to the supernatural for a little help. But it appears that the magic of Max is still the most powerful force in F1 at the moment.
On-track debris:
Lawson Watch: Liam Lawson now sits P20 in the standings ahead of AlphaTauri drivers Nyck De Vries and Ricciardo, thanks to a P11 finish. He also finished ahead of teammate Yuki Tsunoda in both outings for the team (though largely due to Tsunoda’s bad luck). Please send condolences to my F1 fantasy team, from which Yuki will be swiftly removed ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix in two weeks.
Is it time to rethink the penalties for causing a collision? Both Mercedes drivers were handed five-second penalties for their errors, but both managed to hang onto their P5 and P6 finishes. Esteban Ocon, who George Russell pushed off track, retired from the race. After Hamilton collided with Oscar Piastri, the Mclaren driver sustained front wing damage and a long pit stop to replace the nose of the car knocked him down the order (as did his own five-second penalty for colliding with Lawson at the end of the race). In the case of Russell and Hamilton, the punishment was not necessarily proportional to the damage they caused to the drivers with whom they collided.
Photo: u/Bottlez1266 via r/formuladank Hey, speaking of broken records: Nico Hülkenberg extends the record for most race starts without a podium at 195. Adrian Sutil previously held the record with 128 race starts. Just nice to check in on this stat every once and a while.
I'm obsessed with the peanut shell thing not just being a 'superstition' among drivers, but actually making it into the rules??? No Peanuts Allowed