Formula 1 AWS Gran Premio del Made in Italy E Dell'Emilia-Romagna 2025Formula 1 

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Jimlaad43

Jimlaad43

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Coming in at a whopping 33 syllables (If you pronounce the year "Twenty-Twenty-Five"), the longest race name of the year is upon us, which most people would much rather was just called the Imola Grand Prix. The Italian circuit starts the European leg of the season and starts another triple-header. McLaren have the strongest car currently this season and Piastri is on a good winning streak. The two cars left the rest of the field for dust in Miami, with the ominous pace meaning a championship battle requires Norris to get back to beating Piastri. Franco Colapinto has been "subbed" in at Alpine for Jack Doohan and returns to the grid this weekend. How will he fare at the EMILIA-ROMAGNA GRAND PRIX!
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First Grand Prix
1980

Number of Laps
63

Circuit Length
4.909 km

Race Distance
309.049 km

Lap Record
1:15.484 Lewis Hamilton (2020)

 
If this is the end for Imola on the calendar, hopefully it goes out with a bang. I worry though that we may get another Suzuka snoozefest with minimal overtaking.
 
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Fezzik
If this is the end for Imola on the calendar, hopefully it goes out with a bang. I worry though that we may get another Suzuka snoozefest with minimal overtaking.
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Its what happens with the cars going from Small and nimble Missiles to Massive and lumbering land yachts. Not even sure the 2026 regs will fix that.
 
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Say what you want about the Miami GP, but at least it's only seven characters and a space.

Even if the event was only three characters in a race.
 
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I love the track to drive on, but I think as a returning experiment it did prove one thing - good driving circuits does not equate to good racing circuits; as much as we hate the Tilkedromes, modern, wider, more engineered racing circuits do provide better racing action.

We all had rose-tinted glasses on regarding a return to old-school circuits and we have got bitten by circuits like Imola, but there can be a combination of both - you can have the wider circuits, but use more natural barriers for off-track excursions such as grass/gravel/astroturf to punish transgressions rather than giving acres of off-track tarmac.
 
DG_Silva
I love the track to drive on, but I think as a returning experiment it did prove one thing - good driving circuits does not equate to good racing circuits; as much as we hate the Tilkedromes, modern, wider, more engineered racing circuits do provide better racing action.

We all had rose-tinted glasses on regarding a return to old-school circuits and we have got bitten by circuits like Imola, but there can be a combination of both - you can have the wider circuits, but use more natural barriers for off-track excursions such as grass/gravel/astroturf to punish transgressions rather than giving acres of off-track tarmac.
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Spa, Suzuka Monaco, they had already proven that, Imola confirms it further.

The issue is more the cars in my opinion than the circuits, too wide and too long for classic circuits, other series' have no problems creating good racing on proper circuits. Those rose tinted glasses look back to a time of small, nimble, driver focused machinery, not these absolute tanks. Imola is the last place I would have had these beasts running.

Still, like Monaco and Suzuka, qualifying will be entertaining as it is a driver's circuit. These cars can't follow anywhere near close enough for us to get a good race round here.

The ONLY thing that could save this race is the debut of the new 'super soft/hyper soft' C6 tyre. A different strategic element maybe, but it could end up just being what the soft was a few years ago before the made the tyres more resilient.
 
Cars can follow just fine at Imola, it's problem is that there's only really one overtaking spot - and it's got a terrible straight before it.
Tamburello is about the only passing place on the track. Other tracks like Zandvoort and Qatar (not the best examples) also have this one passing zone but the passes there are more likely as they don't have an awful "Isn't Straight" before it. The four separate kinks between Rivazza and Tamburello serve to only narrow the straight down and make it either easier for the defending car to just narrow the space for an attacker down, or have enormous shunts like Bottas and Russell a few years ago.

One curve on a straight works - see Nurburgring, Istanbul, Hockenheim, Silverstone and even the Monaco Tunnel. Adding many curves towards the end of the straight is just asking for disaster. These wonky straights like at Miami, Imola, Suzuka, Abu Dhabi and formerly at Valencia are bad in many ways. Narrows the racing line for an attacker, creates 200mph pinch points and reduces the amount of circuit spectators and TV cameras can see. As dull as a long straights like at Shanghai is, the camera at the straight-on point has a great view of the entire length of it and you can follow a whole pass from it.
 
Jimlaad43
Cars can follow just fine at Imola, it's problem is that there's only really one overtaking spot - and it's got a terrible straight before it.
Tamburello is about the only passing place on the track. Other tracks like Zandvoort and Qatar (not the best examples) also have this one passing zone but the passes there are more likely as they don't have an awful "Isn't Straight" before it. The four separate kinks between Rivazza and Tamburello serve to only narrow the straight down and make it either easier for the defending car to just narrow the space for an attacker down, or have enormous shunts like Bottas and Russell a few years ago.

One curve on a straight works - see Nurburgring, Istanbul, Hockenheim, Silverstone and even the Monaco Tunnel. Adding many curves towards the end of the straight is just asking for disaster. These wonky straights like at Miami, Imola, Suzuka, Abu Dhabi and formerly at Valencia are bad in many ways. Narrows the racing line for an attacker, creates 200mph pinch points and reduces the amount of circuit spectators and TV cameras can see. As dull as a long straights like at Shanghai is, the camera at the straight-on point has a great view of the entire length of it and you can follow a whole pass from it.
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Calling Tamburello an overtaking spot is reaching. I get what you're saying about curved straights but given that 3 of the 5 circuits you listed aren't on the calendar anymore, Silverstone doesn't really have a curve on the straight unless you're counting the little kink after the hairpin prior to the DRS zone which I think is far enough removed from being part of the straight to not count, and Monaco is hardly a bastion of great racing action, so curbed straights there are sort of irrelevant because you're not passing anywhere on that circuit.

Imola has always had a curve or curves in it's straight, Suzuka, again I don't get that comparison but again it's the following that's the issue there, not the 'curved' straight.

Modern F1 cars are just too big for the classic circuits as it stands. No amount of curved or non curved straights will change that fundamental flaw.
 
Fezzik
Sure, in comparison with other tracks Tamburello is not much of an overtaking spot, but here it’s pretty much the only spot.

Emilia-Romagna GP had 30 Overtakes. Stroll did most Overtakes with 5. Full Data in Post – Racingpass

racingpass.net racingpass.net

View attachment 1450570

Not sure any of the proposed replacement circuits for 2026 onward will be any better, so hopefully the new regs with the active aero actually work as intended.
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Oh yeah I don't dispute that Tamburello is the overtaking spot for the circuit, just that it's also the issue.

I recall that Imola is statistically the 2nd worst circuit for overtakes with only Monaco being worse. Data was from a few years ago and has some flaws but nonetheless. Bahrain came out on top.

Either way, like you say, the 2026 regulations need to work to improve racing on all circuits.
 
MagpieRacer
The issue is more the cars in my opinion than the circuits, too wide and too long for classic circuits, other series' have no problems creating good racing on proper circuits.
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While true, there's little that can really be done about the cars' sizes. Having to carry all the leccy gubbins (and all its fuel) is only part of it, and aero is another part (easier to manipulate air flow on a longer body, because you can enact more subtle direction changes), but the role safety plays in it is significant.

Materials can only do so much before physics nopes out, so more stuff around the driver gives more time to decelerate the car into things and things into the car without the driver becoming a loosely bound collection of bone fragments in a skin bag. It'd take an absolutely freak occurrence now for a driver to not climb out of their own car rather than being scooped out with a trowel, and that's a good thing.
 
MagpieRacer
Calling Tamburello an overtaking spot is reaching. I get what you're saying about curved straights but given that 3 of the 5 circuits you listed aren't on the calendar anymore, Silverstone doesn't really have a curve on the straight unless you're counting the little kink after the hairpin prior to the DRS zone which I think is far enough removed from being part of the straight to not count, and Monaco is hardly a bastion of great racing action, so curbed straights there are sort of irrelevant because you're not passing anywhere on that circuit.

Imola has always had a curve or curves in it's straight, Suzuka, again I don't get that comparison but again it's the following that's the issue there, not the 'curved' straight.

Modern F1 cars are just too big for the classic circuits as it stands. No amount of curved or non curved straights will change that fundamental flaw.
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My comment about Suzuka stems from the final Chicane, which I have always hated, for the same reason Imola struggles.

130R is a bit too late down the straight, so it means passes have to be made before it, or a good run has to wait until after it, as side-by-side through 130R is just asking for a 300+kph crash. The straight after is short, narrow and ends with the braking point already turning right before the corner. This naturally pinches the braking zone down from a track width to realistically half the width as the curve starts on the inside after braking has begun. T1 at the Nurburgring gets away with something similar by having the kink after the braking point and also by being a lot wider.

Tamburello has the same narrowing kink before the Chicane which just means the car on the inside can squeeze a car on the outside off easily. It also gives so little space for dives up the inside to be done safely.

Montreal T1 is a great example of the other way. The curve before the corner is in the opposite direction to the corner, meaning it makes the racing line the one of most resistance and encourages a car to take the shorter route down the inside. It's a mistake generator that forces the defending car to have to choose which compromise they want, rather than having the advantage the entire time through the corner.

The cars are big, that's clearly an issue, but circuit design is still an issue regardless of car size. A design that makes it easier to defend or actively causes big crashes is a problem regardless of category.
 
Famine
While true, there's little that can really be done about the cars' sizes. Having to carry all the leccy gubbins (and all its fuel) is only part of it, and aero is another part (easier to manipulate air flow on a longer body, because you can enact more subtle direction changes), but the role safety plays in it is significant.

Materials can only do so much before physics nopes out, so more stuff around the driver gives more time to decelerate the car into things and things into the car without the driver becoming a loosely bound collection of bone fragments in a skin bag. It'd take an absolutely freak occurrence now for a driver to not climb out of their own car rather than being scooped out with a trowel, and that's a good thing.
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100%. Safety is and should always be top priority. Even next years 'smaller and lighter' cars are still behemoths. WEC hypercars have the benefit of being closed wheel and closed cockpit and can therefore be smaller whilst maintaining high safety standards. But even they still need BoP to ensure close racing regardless of circuit.

I guess my point is that we clamour for the inclusion of historical venues like Imola, Spa and various others and many ridicule the modern circuits, street or otherwise, yet for the modern age of F1, the modern circuits are the ones that provide the more exciting races. So whilst my statement is a criticism at the larger modern F1 car, it's also a criticism of the desire to race at classic, old school venues which simply aren't fit for purpose from a modern F1 racing standpoint.

There's a reason Miami provided a better race this year than Suzuka and that trend will likely not change. Unless next year's cars somehow provide a magic fix, which is unlikely but I'm prepared to be surprised.

And now with all that said, watch this weekends race be an absolute classic.
 
Piastri is gunning for his 4th consecutive win, which is remarkable considering only Hamilton, Rosberg and Verstappen have got at least 3 wins in a row with the hybrids. I figured he would get better this year but I wasn't expecting this much of a step.

With McLaren so far ahead and the regs changing, I wouldn't be surprised to see some records broken.
 
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Even with the update on the red Bull I feel like this race is between the McLaren drivers and maybe Mercedes. The red Bull looked like a handful. The Alpine and Williams are quite interesting and Ferrari is nowhere.
 
Decent run by this Hermann kid. Seems like he might fast in the right conditions.
 
MagpieRacer
Wow, massive rollover crash, been a while since we've seen an F1 car roll over.
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Even destroyed the LED board for flags.

He seemed to limp a bit coming out of the car, hope he's fully fine.

Edit: the LED board still seems to work, it's just a bit crooked 😅
 
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Oof....that was a bad one. Glad to see Yuki ok. Hopefully this is not the start of the end of his F1 career considering the history of that second seat at Red Bull.
 
Colapinto seems to be something of a steward magnet on his second debut...
 
Doohan could’ve trashed it, if that’s what you want from a driver.
 
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