Hard as it may be to believe now, time was when there were no chicanes at Monza, when the track – prior to 1972 – was uncompromisingly fast. “You had the Curva Grande and the two Lesmos, which were really testing corners,” said Jackie Stewart, “but for most of the lap you were flat out…”

Back then the feeling was that, like Monaco, it still had a place in the calendar as a maverick event, although even 40 years ago, before safety had become the over-riding issue it is today, Monza was considered perilous.

When the drivers arrived there in September 1971, there was nothing – save a Grand Prix victory – at stake. At the Ӧsterreichring, three weeks earlier, Stewart had clinched his second World Championship: such had been his domination with the Tyrrell that, with Monza, Mosport and Watkins Glen still to be run, he was beyond reach.

That season was my first as a racing journalist, and in the course of it I got to know most of the drivers, in particular Chris Amon, who had natural ability to throw away, and time and again led Grands Prix comfortably, only for something on his car to fail.

In 1971 Amon was with Matra, whose chassis was as good as any in the business, but propelled by a shrieking V12 engine way less powerful than it sounded. Indeed, so pathetic had it been at the Nürburgring that the team decided to pass up the Austrian GP, and concentrate on resolving the problem, which centred around the oil system.

“It worked, too,” said Chris. “Everyone thought we had a new engine, but we hadn’t – they’d simply solved the oil churning problem. When they put my ‘Ring engine on the dyno they found it was giving only 395bhp, but the one they gave me for Monza had 460, which was on a par with the Cosworth, if not Ferrari and the best BRM engines.”

Having recently hit a period of reliability, BRM looked in good shape. After the death of Pedro Rodríguez in a minor sports car race in July, Jo Siffert had truly stepped up to the plate, and won at the Ӧsterreichring, another very quick track. Monza was expected to favour the V12s, with the Cosworth V8 runners for once up against it.

In those less ‘official’ times to penalise a Ferrari at Monza would have been unthinkable

There were fewer spectators than usual for the practice days, perhaps because the championship was already settled in favour of Stewart, rather than Jacky Ickx; for the sake of the race day crowd, clearly the organisers hoped for a Ferrari driver on pole.

In those days timekeeping was a somewhat haphazard business. There were no TV screens, showing instant order changes, no automatic timing system – and at Monza there were six hours of practice, all official, all counting for grid positions. After each session, you waited endlessly for the sheets to be issued.

Late on Saturday afternoon, Ickx – and Ferrari – were shown as fastest, and the Italian journalists duly went to work on suitably enthusiastic stories. Only after the papers had gone to press was Michele Dubosc – Matra’s unimpeachable timekeeper – able to persuade the authorities that someone had set a quicker time than Ickx. Half a second quicker, in fact.

“All through practice, when I was running on my own, I was lapping nearly a second quicker than anyone else,” said Amon, “and I got pole quite easily. As well as that, Ickx’s time was cooked, I think…”

When the tifosi arrived on Sunday morning, it was thus with some disappointment that they learned that a blue car, rather than a red, would be starting from pole position. That said, they were much soothed when Clay Regazzoni’s Ferrari – starting from row four – made the best start.

Consummately the best. By the time the rest got moving, Clay was already in second gear, but in those less ‘official’ times to penalise a Ferrari at Monza – particularly one driven by the previous year’s winner – would have been unthinkable. At the end of the opening lap Regazzoni swept by with a sizeable lead, and the crowd went into rapture.