F1 | Ferrari, back to Imola 14 years after the last San Marino GP

14 years after the last San Marino Grand Prix, won by Michael Schumacher with the Ferrari 248 F1 in 2006, Formula 1 returns to the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola for the Emilia Romagna GP, the 13th event of the 2020 season and third on Italian soil after those in Monza and Mugello.

40 years have passed since the first time of the World Championship on the Santerno circuit, when the facility hosted the Italian GP in place of a Monza closed for modernization works. From the following year the track outside Milan resumed the Italian race but for 26 years the San Marino Grand Prix was held in Imola.

Scuderia Ferrari has won here eight times, the first in 1982 with Didier Pironi, in the race that marked the end of the relationship between the French driver and his Canadian teammate Gilles Villeneuve; the following year with Patrick Tambay and then six times with Schumacher (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006).

Less track time. For the first time, the format of a two-day GP will be officially tested - which has already happened recently due to force majeure in the Eifel Grand Prix, when adverse weather conditions at the Nürburgring prevented free practice on Friday from taking place - which it could be adopted in the near future to allow races to be added to the calendar while limiting the increase in days spent away from home for teams. The press activities that usually take place on Thursday will therefore be postponed by a day and the cars will take to the track for the first time at 10 CET on Saturday for 90 minutes of free practice. At 14pm it will already be time to go to qualifying, while on Sunday 1 November the race will start at 13.10pm to ensure that there is still light in the four-hour window within which the event must end.

New layout. There are no reliable lap references not only because several years have passed since the last visit of Formula 1 to Imola, but above all due to the fact that the circuit has been modified: there is no longer the variant before the pits so now, from From the Rivazza exit to the Tamburello chicane, the cars are always in full acceleration. The lap time should be around one minute to 14 seconds, much faster than the 1'20"411 achieved on the previous configuration by Schumacher in 2004. Otherwise the circuit has not changed and continues to offer legendary corners such as the very fast Villeneuve, the Tosa, the challenging Piratella and the Acque Minerali downhill.
Public. It was hoped until the end that the GP would be held with the presence of the public, even if limited, but following the worsening of the Covid-19 infection situation in Italy, just yesterday the decision was made that the race will be behind closed doors. This is a cause of great regret for the Scuderia, which hoped to be able to greet the many Italian fans once again, but it is clear that safety must come first.

Fifth unpublished. The name of the race, Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, is the fifth new one of this season (after Stiria, 70th Anniversario, Toscana – Ferrari 1000 and Eifel) while the only driver to have competed in Imola in Formula 1 is the veteran Kimi Räikkönen who has five appearances on the track for the construction of which, among others, Enzo Ferrari also worked as a consultant in 1948. The facility was inaugurated in 1953 with a motorcycle race, to which the following year was added the automotive debut with the race called Conchiglia d'Oro Shell which was won by Umberto Maglioli's official Ferrari Mondial.

Nomen omen. In 1970, during a solemn ceremony in the City Council, the Mayor of Imola entrusted the fate of the racetrack to the image and charisma of Enzo Ferrari, naming it after his son Dino, who died in 1956 at just 24 years old. Upon the death of the great Enzo, in 1988, precisely to give a tangible sign of the affection and gratitude that linked Imola to the "Drake", the circuit was renamed Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari.