Thursday 16th August 1923

The Alfa Romeo P1 race car was given its first speed test with Antonio Ascari reaching 112 mph. The car had a 2.0 L straight-6 engine and it produced 95 bhp (71 kW) at 5000 rpms. Two cars were entered in the Italian GP at Monza in 1923, one for Antonio Ascari and one for Ugo Sivocci. When Sivocci was practicing for the GP in September 1923 he crashed and was killed. Alfa Romeo withdrew from the competition and development of the car was stopped. In 1924 a new version with Roots-compressor was made and became the P1 Compressore 1924. In 1923 Vittorio Jano was hired to Alfa Romeo to design new car and P2 was born.