The Autodromo Nazionale di Monza is a classic racing track. Although the configuration has changed since F1 first raced there, its moniker “The Temple of Speed” remains very appropriate.
High speeds and a couple of heavy braking zones characterise the track. Good traction is vital, as you’ll feel the benefits all the way down each long straight.
The circuit tends to stress the rear tyres, so building a setup to protect these a little is also useful.
Aerodynamics
Monza is essentially a series of long straights interrupted by the occasional corner or two. Because of this, a low downforce setup is essential.
For me, 1-6 works really well. The traction zones are really easy with the rear wing as high as this, and the car will still turn in well enough even with the front wing at its lowest.
Transmission
For the on-throttle transmission, 50% is the best here as everywhere else. This is because it provides great stability under traction.
For the off-throttle setting, I’ve found 60% to be the fastest setting without it causing any difficulties with stability mid-corner.
Suspension Geometry
Running camber settings further from 0 gives your car better outright performance in the mid to high speed corners. Therefore, you’ll find a lot of benefit in the Lesmos and the Parabolica if you run lower camber.
However, go too extreme with it and you’ll struggle with tyre wear and the car will become a handful at high speeds. To strike the right balance, -3.00 and -1.50 are optimal.
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For the toe, using the lowest settings of 0.05 and 0.20 help the car to hold on through the Parabolica, while also helping a little with reducing tyre wear.
Suspension
For your suspension, you’ll want a setup that can allow you to ride the kerbs in turns 1 and 4, as well as in the Ascari chicane.
A fairly soft suspension setup of 2-4 will give you confidence to maximise these corners by leaning on the kerbs.
A stiffer rear suspension would give more lap time over a single lap, but the car would become skittish and your rear tyres would wear much faster.
For your anti-roll bars, 3-5 is my recommendation. Usually, I would suggest running a higher rear stiffness to help with stability, but it’s simply not necessary at Monza. Lowering the stiffness helps with rear tyre wear and also with rotation.
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Ride height is quite important in Monza. You need a setup which gives you a low drag profile, and so running the ride height as low as you can is critical. However, because of the size of some of the kerbs, you can’t go too low.
2-3 is the lowest you can realistically get away with around here.
Brakes
For your brake settings, I would recommend 100% brake pressure along with 50% brake bias. This gives you the most stopping power without over-stressing the front brakes and causing lockups.
If you find that you’re uncomfortable with this brake setup, try lowering the brake pressure.
Tyres
Monza isn’t a circuit which overheats the front tyres in F1 2020.
As a result of this, you won’t need to reduce your front pressures from the default setting of 23.0psi.
For the rears, going down to 20.3psi yields smoother traction while limiting your rear tyre temperatures, which is more of a concern than with the fronts.
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The temple of speed is such a simple track, but it’s also a whole lot of fun. Given how few corners there are, this setup is aimed primarily at gaining you performance on the straights.
You may find yourself struggling a little in certain corners, but your top speeds will more than make up for it.