ROUND 7: 🇸🇲 San Marino
FORMULA 1 MSC CRUISES GRAN PREMIO DEL MADE IN ITALY E DELL’EMILIA-ROMAGNA 2024
Circuit stats
- 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)
- 2023 winner: N/A
Track Map
I have a question for any old head race fans around here: I often hear people proclaim their love for Imola as a track. Does this purely come from a technical standpoint, and/or from you guys enjoying driving it on simulators/racing games?
I can’t remember a single good dry race here from a spectator standpoint. It’s just so narrow and un-conducive to overtakes. If I wanted to go back and watch an old dry Imola race on F1TV to learn to love it, what are your recommendations?
As for today’s action, I’m encouraged by McLaren’s pace of course, and will go into the rest of the season a bit more hopeful. Miami wasn’t a fluke, and maybe (only maybe though) we can have genuine fights for the win this season. If it wasn’t so impossibly hard to overtake around here Norris would have had Max on pure pace for a second time. McLaren upgrades hit different.
Aston though, oof. Let’s hope the new wind tunnel this fall will address their correlation issues, because this is dreadful. 9 upgrades and the car performs worse, you just have to laugh through the tears. I have to highlight Stroll though, who had a really good race but nobody will give him credit for it. He’s wildly inconsistent and sometimes underperforms massively, but when he’s on it he can pull off a great race.
Yuki should be mentioned too, really solid race again and Perez must be under genuine pressure now. If both McLaren and Ferrari can keep this kind of gap to Max up RBR really can’t afford an underperforming 2nd driver or the constructors championship is actually under threat.
The “Old good, new bad” line of thinking that has plagued motorsport fans, I think is a big reason why it is so well loved.
I’ve driven it in multiple sims. And while it’s alright for time trails, an actual race is pretty dull.
It’s definitely a track carried by reputation and nostalgia.
The other replies are correct and so are you. The track is very narrow and does not make for good wheel to wheel racing. It is fine to drive in a game/Sim and to watch cars going along. Even the f2 race was not particularly exciting.
You are right it’s boring
It’s too narrow. Even the spec races in f2 which are normally hands down better racing than f1 was just OK
I love Imola because it feels like a “small town” track and has lots of dynamics to it. The elevations, the corners. Classic, tight and pure Italian.
But I’m also a realist, the cars racing today are bigger than ever making overtakes difficult, combined with the gravel traps making every attempt a gamble. The intent of the chicanes isn’t to launch a car over them, but the modern wheelbase seems to demand this approach.
This track only made it back on the calendar because of COVID, and is scheduled to leave next year. It’s sort of sheer luck that F1 even raced at Imola again. Big time treat for the fans, but I feel the cars have unfortunately outgrown it.
As for a recommended race, 2005 San Marino GP is pretty good with a fight between Alonso and Schumacher
Edit: adding picture comparing total dimensions between cars today, and the cars that were racing when Imola left the calendar in 2006:
Stroll absolutely has his flashes of brilliance, but he’s up against the double whammy of otherwise being a mediocre to disappointing driver occupying his seat on his father’s dime rather than his merit, along with punctuating his bouts of mediocrity with absolutely stupid moves much more often than brilliant drives. Unless he really turns things around in a major way before he retires, I doubt he’s ever going to get to enjoy any broad popularity or acclaim.