Amid the racing, the tyre compounds, the fanfare and another Max Verstappen victory, was this year’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix the Imola circuit’s farewell to Formula 1?
Despite there being only around 16 races on the F1 calendar when Imola was previously a fixture on it, there is now a high demand for a coveted space on the schedule, now at a whopping 24 races.
New markets are being found, with the Middle East securing some coveted spaces, with the United States now occupying three dates, and with the oldest ‘heritage sites’ like Monza, Monaco and Silverstone secure, even the likes of Spa-Francorchamps now operates on a rotation.
Despite the Imola being an F1 epicentre for Ferrari – always courting a plethora of its famed Tifosi – providing a unique partisan atmosphere that drivers of other teams can admire, it appears that it will make way for a new venue somewhere across the globe.
You see, passion for motorsport is just not enough.
The subject of Imola’s impending exodus was on the lips of many of the drivers over the race weekend, with even the newer breed of drivers making their feelings clear in favour of its continuation.
Oscar Piastri admitted that, despite only racing a smattering of times, it was “definitely towards the top end of my favourites.”
Max Verstappen echoed Piastri’s sentiments, saying after taking victory there that its heritage and vibe will be something he will miss.
“For me, of course, personally, when I just speak about the enjoyment of driving, it’s these kind of tracks that made me fall in love with racing in general, in go-karting even, because you have the same thing in go-karting where some tracks are more special than others,” he said.
“And then, of course, when you started watching Formula 1, there were always these few tracks where you just, I don’t know, you look at the speeds, you look at how difficult they are to master, the history of the sport at certain tracks it’s all very special and gives you a bit more emotion to things.”
Given its history, and what tragedy it survived by staying on the calendar before, it seems almost a flagrant disregard to consider its future is being cut so short.
The Imola circuit first broke ground just a matter of weeks before the first-ever F1 Grand Prix was contested in 1950. It did not host an F1 race of any kind for another 13 years, in which Jim Clark took victory in a non-championship. Another 16 years elapsed before it hosted another, in which Niki Lauda took his last win before his first retirement.
A year later, it would host the Italian Grand Prix due to Monza’s necessary refurbishments, and did such a sterling job that it was afforded its own spot on the calendar in the shape of the San Marino Grand Prix.
It proceeded to be the backdrop for a myriad of memorable moments, such as the final ever Grand Prix of Gilles Villeneuve amid his bitter inter-team battle with Didier Pironi; the infamous 1985 race in which a number of lead cars ran out of fuel before the finish; and the 1989 instalment, in which an 82-esque bending of team agreements saw the blue touchpaper lit on the rivalry between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.
Despite its popularity amongst fans and drivers alike, Imola always possessed an elephant in the room – its first corner, the left-hand, full-throttle Tamburello curve.
A formidable kink taken with foot to the floor, the corner was like a rollercoaster turn on steroids, but its concrete wall skirting around its run-off area could often be a painful reminder of the risks of motor racing.
Nelson Piquet suffered a concussion from it in 1987, Riccardo Patrese escaped miraculously from its clutches in 1992, and three years prior, sent Gerhard Berger into a fiery purgatory.
A mechanical issue left Berger’s Ferrari spearing into the wall, creating a shower of carbon fibre, and, as it turned out, fuel, which quickly ignited as an unconscious Berger lay stricken in the car.
Some minor burns were, thankfully, the worst of the Austrian’s injuries, and he was back to racing quickly afterwards, but a phone call from Senna in his hospital bed instigated the two men to visit the site of the crash.
Wanting to move the concrete wall further back, they discovered a small lake ran adjacent to the wall. The pair looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and concluded there was nothing they could do.
Four years later, the gravel trap at Tamburello became the location of Senna’s lifeless body, partly carpeted in his blood as Professor Sid Watkins realised the wall had claimed the three-time World Champion, just a matter of yards from the Villeneuve corner – a similarly hair-raising kink – which was the catalyst of the demise of Roland Ratzenberger barely 24 hours before.
Imola quite literally had blood on its hands, and work was quickly taken to ensure such a likelihood of mortality would never happen again. Two chicanes at the crash areas were implemented, and the circuit would continue to thrill those in F1, both from the cockpit and in the grandstands.
It saw home wins for Ferrari via Michael Schumacher in 1999, 2000, 2002, 3 and 4 and was also a respectable rite of passage for Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Schumacher’s brother Ralf, both of whom took their first F1 wins there in 1997 and 2001 respectively.
Perhaps its last hurrah was the 2005 race, in which it saw a thrilling end-of-race showdown between Schumacher Sr and the then-young pretender Fernando Alonso, who placed his Renault in all the right places to wrong Ferrari and secure one of the most memorable wins of the 2000s.
A year later proved to be its final instalment, with Schumacher taking his seventh win on the circuit, before it would disappear off the calendar, and for a time, was graded insufficient to host a Grand Prix.
A raft of improvements were made, and in the COVID-affected 2020 campaign, Imola would return to perhaps what many felt was its rightful place back in F1, albeit as the now renamed Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.
However, in the intervening years, cars grew to a size that reduced the level of entertainment Imola could once provide, making it feel as if it was like a favourite item of childhood clothing one had outgrown.
It is, in that case, however, that the 2025 race seemed a fitting one in which it might go out on. Filled with much excitement, and a double-points finish for Ferrari after a dismal qualifying, Imola is more than likely taking its final bows, but with the hope that the curtains will not fully close, so its encore can always be given.
READ MORE – F1 warned to not abandon historic tracks amid Imola uncertainty
