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Imola
The long European leg of the F1 season used to start here after a couple of amuse-bouche rounds outside the Old Continent. It also signalled the start of spring, with a particularly virulent pollen off the trees at the back of the paddock giving almost everyone a bad dose of hay-fever. I say “paddock” but that’s a slight exaggeration as the F1 trucks and motorhomes had to squeeze into a tiny area the shape of a parmesan cheese triangle, so that the smaller teams barely had any room to work whatsoever. These days we talk about the great atmosphere at Monza and gush on about the tifosi, but in all honesty, Imola was always the real Ferrari home race. The crowd was actually much more vocal and, like football fans, they had no time for those who didn’t support the Prancing Horse, sportingly booing other teams’ drivers, with just the right amount of hostility. The most vociferous of the fans gathered at Rivazza, camping out on the hill and if it rained over the weekend, then it ended up looking like a battlefield, or what an Italian battlefield would have looked like, if the Italians had ever bothered to defend themselves from invaders. Add a brilliant track layout and you had a recipe for a perfect motor sport weekend. Sadly, Imola will always be remembered for that tragic April/May weekend in 1994 and the current economic climate means we are very unlikely to see F1 cars there again.
