Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix

The European season beginsThe European season begins

2025 season

An iconic circuit steeped in triumph and tragedy. Imola has provided the stage for some of the most unforgettable moments F1 history, including Fernando's pulsating battles for victory with Michael Schumacher in 2005 and '06. The ferocious circuit marked the start of the European leg of the 2025 F1 season.

Round seven in the latter half of May feels like a late date for F1 to be making its European debut, but the races come thick and fast now with a triple-header taking in the F1 royalty of Monaco and the go-to test track of Barcelona following the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at the magnificently old-school Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, usually referred to simply by its geographical shorthand: Imola.

After a hard-fought race, Lance and Fernando finished outside of the points, following the unfortunate timing of a Virtual Safety Car period.

Lance driver pic for standings on race page Emilia-Romagna

LanceStroll

15th

RACE POSITION

10th

DRIVER STANDING

Lance's profile

Fernando driver pic for standings on race page Emilia-Romagna

FernandoAlonso

11th

RACE POSITION

17th

DRIVER STANDING

Fernando's profile

Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix race stats

Number of pitstops

Longest stint (laps)

Total laps

309.05

Total kilometres

LanceStroll

P15

Final position

Starting position

Points

FernandoAlonso

P11

Final position

Starting position

Points

Fastest lapM:S.MS

1:20.501

Lance

1:19.894

Fernando

Max speedKM/H

301.0

Lance

304.3

Fernando

Practice laps

Lance

Fernando

Qualifying laps

Lance

Fernando

Race laps

Lance

Fernando

Total laps

152

Lance

147

Fernando

Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix

The Debrief by Aramco

Positives to take despite a finish outside the points.

Emilia-Romagna Debrief Saturday list image

TRACK INSIGHTS

Autodromo Enzo e Dino FerrariAutodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari

Imola's a very challenging track with a lot of elevation change. You really need to know how to use the kerbs.

Felipe Drugovich – Test & Reserve Driver

2023 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix track map

Toggle below to highlight parts of the track.

Sectors
Turns
DRS

Circuit length (km)
4.909
Number of corners
19
Race distance (km)
309.049

NEED TO KNOW: EMILIA-ROMAGNA GP

The essential Emilia-Romagna travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Mastering Imola

The magic of racing in Emilia-Romagna

Strategy Insights from Emilia-Romagna

Ultimate Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix facts

Last time out

The essential Emilia-Romagna travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

You come to Emilia-Romagna, you have to eat. And keep eating. And then eat some more. Many places claim to be the foodie capital of the world, but this is the real deal. Whether it’s an elegant dining room in Bologna, an Adriatic restaurant with fresh seafood, or a simple, rustic trattoria, this is a truly inspiring place to sample the best of Italian cuisine.

F1 traditionally visits Imola at the start of the European season – but that covers a lot of territory as the calendar morphs and changes. It used to be that there would still be snow on the Apennines when F1 came here, and the ski runs were still open for a little bit of bluebird slalom. With more flyaways compressing the European season, there's more green than white around, which makes it a great time to head west down the SS9 to the Adriatic Coast, past Faenza and Forli and to the beaches and marinas of Milano Maritimo and Cervia. In the week, these still have the early-season feel of resorts just waking up – but from Friday night onwards, when everyone heads out of the cities, it's an early taste of summer to come.

There are honestly any number of magnificent cities and towns to visit in this corner of Italy, to see everything from Roman amphitheatres to medieval hilltop monasteries. The one that has a special place in the heart of F1 is the commune of Brisighella. Every year, the commune presents the Trofeo Lorenzo Bandini for an outstanding achievement in motorsport, in honour of the former Ferrari driver who died following injuries sustained in the 1967 Monaco Grand Prix. Fernando was the recipient of the award in 2005, but it's a fantastic place to visit, even leaving its racing associations aside, afforded the accolade of I Borghi più belli d'Italia – a designation for the most beautiful villages in Italy.

At Imola, you're in the very heart of Italy's own motorsport valley. This is the best circuit in the world to pick up memorabilia, with the stalls that line the – already too narrow – roads leading into the circuit heavy with rare books, team kit, posters, souvenirs and everything anyone might possibly want from 75 years of F1 history. A little further afield, there are some wonderful museums to visit showcasing the heritage of Italy's great racing marques on two and four wheels.

Mastering Imola

The Formula One World Championship has been coming to Imola since 1980 – but the circuit itself is much older, dating back to the early 1950s, and it retains the look of a circuit from that particular era: narrow; technical; making good use of natural contours as it chases its way up and down the hillside, flashing past the terracotta roofs and cypress trees that hedge the boundaries of the tarmac. It isn't a circuit that was designed with modern F1 cars in mind, which makes for a tough, cagey race where track position holds sway over absolute pace.

In many respects, Imola feels like the spiritual twin of Suzuka. There's the old-school narrowness of the track, but like the Japanese circuit, the start-finish straight features the only DRS zone and thus the only real overtaking spot – in this instance at Tamburello – comes at the end of it. You also have the corners with names and character tripping off the tongue: Tamburello; Villeneuve; Tosa; Piratella; Acque Minerali; Variante Alta, Rivazza – and Varianta Bassa if you like the bikes, though F1 no longer uses the bottom chicane.

At the start of this ground-effect era, Imola demanded a tricky compromise. These cars run better, the lower and stiffer they are – but lap-time at Imola is generated by softening the car to run over the kerbs at the various chicanes. That's not such a big issue now, with Imola, in response to lots of track limits infringements, fitting some pretty unapproachable new kerbs to oblige cars to stay on track. The cars still have to deal with some pretty significant bumps, however, which makes suspension settings something that usually requires tweaking on the day.

In terms of downforce, attack and defence into Tamburello tends to dominate, with a medium downforce set-up. Within that is a choice: run a little less wing than optimum to improve attack and defence at the end of the DRS zone – or a little more to ensure a flying start to the straight with a good exit out of the final corner. Either has merit – but you can't have both.

The magic of racing in Emilia-Romagna

Imola smells nice. You never quite get over that. This is a garden circuit, with the track threading its way across the parkland, between people's houses, and in Spring, we get everything in bloom – it's a wonderful circuit to visit. It doesn't have the modern convenience of each grandstand overlooking two or three sections of track: at Imola you get the corner you get – but some of the views are spectacular.

Up at the top of the hill, the Tosa grandstands are great – but it's worth noting that this is a perimeter circuit and it's quite a walk from there to get to the merchandise zone and the stage in the middle of the circuit. The section that almost always catches the eye, however, is the bleachers down at Rivazza. It's the loudest, most raucous part of the circuit – but it's also got a very good view of an incident-packed corner.

Strategy Insights from Emilia-Romagna

There are different reasons why some races are one-stop and others are two, or three. In Miami, last time out, for example, the reason the race is a one-stopper is that degradation is low and, in a deterministic race, doing the mandatory minimum single stop is the fastest way to the flag. It's not quite like that at Imola. The pitlane is long and the straight, coming out of the quick Rivazza corners, is very fast, creating a heavy pit-loss of around 27 seconds. It's also a narrow track with just one DRS zone and few overtaking opportunities. Extra stops take a lot of time, and fighting through traffic after them is fraught with difficulty. It's a circuit where track position is king.

Last year's race was a one-stop, with most drivers running a Medium-Hard race. The pit window was reasonably wide, with some cars stopping as early as lap eight, and Lance able to go all the way to lap 37 of the 63. The mainstream alternative was to try Hard-Medium, though given the grip given up at the start and the difficulty regaining places, that wasn't particularly popular, with only Sergio Pérez scoring points. Fernando and Pierre Gasly went the other way, starting on a Soft tyre but eventually making multiple stops and not scoring.

How useful this is as a guide depends on how this year's tyres perform. For the third race in a row, Pirelli has stepped down its range, and the all-new C6 compound will be making its race debut this weekend as the Soft tyre. In Jeddah, and Miami, going softer didn't make a difference, with both races remaining one-stop. Teams will be even more keen not to add another stop in Imola.

Ultimate Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix facts

1 | Imola has hosted 31 F1 World Championship Grands Prix. It hosted the Italian Grand Prix in 1980 – the only track other than Monza to do so – then the San Marino Grand Prix between 1981 and 2006, and the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix since 2020, albeit with the 2023 race cancelled due to flooding.

2 | Imola is approximately 100km from San Marino. The Republic is located close to the Adriatic coast, not far from Rimini.

3 | Michael Schumacher is the most successful driver at Imola, winning the San Marino Grand Prix seven times. Fernando is one of three Imola winners in the current field, along with Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.

4 | Fernando's victory came in 2005, for Benetton, and goes down in history as one of the best, if not the best, defensive drives of all time. Holding off a very committed Michael Schumacher for the final quarter of the race.

5 | Fernando is the only current driver to have raced at Imola in its previous incarnation as the San Marino Grand Prix – though Lewis Hamilton took part in GP2 during the 2006 San Marino Grand Prix weekend.

6 | The circuit jointly holds the record for the most red flags in Qualifying, with the session interrupted five times in 2022. The São Paulo Grand Prix tied it last year.

7 | Imola returned to the F1 calendar in 2020, with the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix arranged as an emergency measure during the global pandemic lockdown. It was one of three races held in Italy that season, the others being the Italian Grand Prix at Monza and the Tuscan Grand Prix at Mugello.

8 | 18 of the 31 races held here have been won from the front row. Emphasising how difficult overtaking is, the lowest any winning driver has started is P5.

Last time out

We've come away from Imola with points at each of our three visits. 2021 was a chaotic Grand Prix with a wet/dry race, punctuated by crashes big and small, Safety Cars, red flags and reversals of fortune. It wasn't a great day for Sebastian Vettel, who struggled around at the back of the field before eventually retiring with gearbox trouble. Lance, on the other hand, enjoyed another good day in the rain, starting P10 – still our best grid position at Imola – he kept it on the track while those around him spun off, crossing the line P7 but with a penalty that knocked him back to P8.

2022 was damp rather than wet but still allowing plenty of scope for drama. After failing to score in the Sprint, and with Grand Prix grid positions in the wrong half of the field, Sebastian and Lance both came home in the points, P8 and P10 respectively.

Devasting floods in Emilia-Romagna forced a cancellation of the 2023 race, and so 2024 was the next time F1 raced at Imola. It was a weekend to forget for Fernando, who struggled with an updated car, including a heavy FP3 crash, and then a subsequent early elimination in Qualifying. His race didn't go well – but an early pitstop pulled other cars in, and cleared a path for Lance to run a long opening stint that allowed him to have a healthy tyre delta at the end of the race and pass his way up to P9, ensuring he retained his record of scoring each time we go to the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari.

Session Times

FP1

Fri16May

12:30-13:30 BST

FP2

Fri16May

16:00-17:00 BST

FP3

Sat17May

11:30-12:30 BST

Quali

Sat17May

15:00-16:00 BST

Race

Sun18May

14:00 BST

Talking Points

"We've got to be single-minded, forensic, and detailed"

Finding the extra one per cent, Imola updates, and working in our new wind tunnel.

CEO and Team Principal Andy Cowell discusses our season so far, updates to the AMR25, and delving into the details in the pursuit of performance.

The European season beginsThe European season begins

The Debrief by Aramco

Autodromo Enzo e Dino FerrariAutodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari

The essential Emilia-Romagna travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Mastering Imola

The magic of racing in Emilia-Romagna

Strategy Insights from Emilia-Romagna

Ultimate Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix facts

Last time out

"We've got to be single-minded, forensic, and detailed"

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