Imola
This is a circuit that Formula One folk used to love, because it not only heralded the first European grand prix of the year but did so in a glorious setting often bathed in spring weather. However, it also had its dark side and will forever be remembered as the circuit where Ayrton Senna died.
Anyone fortunate enough to visit the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari on a sunny spring day will appreciate why this circuit was held in such affection, for it exists as part of the countryside rather than simply being a tailor-made facility in the middle of nowhere. Built on the edge of the town of Imola, with its lower edge only 50 metres (165 ft) or so from the riverbank and its upper side twisting its way through farmland and orchards, it felt connected to its landscape, something that was all the more appreciated when the teams had returned from the season-opening flyaway races. This was where they could bring their trucks for the first time and thus have all the equipment they needed. They could bring their motorhomes too, and so life felt less compromised.
Imola has always operated in the shadow of Monza, the pre-eminent Italian temple to motor racing. Built 30 years after its illustrious rival, Imola opened in 1952 and operated very much as a national level circuit, bar a non-championship F1 race won by Lotus ace Jim Clark in 1963, until it finally gained international standing when its facilities were upgraded in 1979 and it hosted another non-championship F1 race won by Niki Lauda for Brabham. With Monza still in some confusion after Ronnie Peterson's death at the start of the 1978 Italian GP, Imola then took over the Italian GP in 1980, and Brabham won again, this 72 time with Nelson Piquet taking the chequered flag. Then, with the sport's governing body showing a degree of favouritism to all things Ferrari, Imola remained in F1 after the Italian GP returned to Monza, because it was granted a grand prix of its own from 1981 — called the San Marino GP, named after the small landlocked principality located 80 kilometres (49 miles) to the south-east. This arrangement would continue until 2006, after which the FIA couldn't justify Italy having two grands prix and looked to drop European events to make way for new grands prix in Asia.
By this time, the facilities at Imola had dropped below the level expected, with the paddock seen as its most major drawback. It was incredibly cramped and had little scope to be expanded because it already filled all the space between the back of the pits grandstand and the river behind. So, it was inevitable that its F1 days were numbered, even though its hillsides and grandstands continued to be packed by raucous tifosi — and thus F1 lost one of its most characterful venues.
Two of Imola's notable features were that it used to be extremely high on fuel consumption, because so much of the lap was driven at full throttle. It was also immensely hard on the brakes due to heavy retardation being required into Tosa as well as into the Variante Alta and Variante Bassa chicanes. After the insertion of further chicanes at Tamburello and Villeneuve following the double deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna in 1994, the amount of full throttle running was reduced, to 61 per cent of the lap, and the intensity of braking into Tosa cut back. However, it remained a place that made the cars work as hard as the drivers, with the plunge from Piratella down to Acque Minerali, then up again to Variante Alta being incredibly challenging.
While the deaths that rocked F1 in 1994 remain the most poignant, the circuit had had major accidents from which drivers had been fortunate to escape, including Gilles Villeneuve slamming into the barriers at the kink before Tosa in 1980 and Gerhard Berger surviving a fiery crash at Tamburello in 1989. For Ferrari fans, though, a dark moment came in 1991, when disaster struck even before the start as Alain Prost spun out at Rivazza on the parade lap while rain fell and Jean Alesi slid out of the race at Tosa a few laps later. Older tifosi might prefer to forget the bad feeling in their camp after Didier Pironi allegedly reneged on a pre-race agreement with team-mare Villeneuve to beat him in the race from which the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA) teams stayed away.
