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Imola has achieved its goal of sealing a multi-year deal with Formula 1, keeping it on the calendar until at least 2025.
As reported by The Race last year, the Italian track had raised the funds to secure a longer-term agreement after making a shock return to the schedule as a stand-in track during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
It stayed on the calendar again for 2022 as China had to abandon a planned April slot due to lingering COVID-19 restrictions.
Now Imola and F1 have announced they have agreed a deal running to the 2025 season inclusive.
A coalition of bodies agreed to put up the funding required to keep hosting the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Last year, Italian prime minister Mario Draghi instructed the ACI, Italy’s motorsport authority, to draw up an agreement with F1 with a reported €20m fund guaranteed.
The majority of that is believed to be paid by the national government, one-quarter from the Emilia Romagna region (from which the recent races took their names), and the rest from the CON.MI regional consortium and the ACI.
Imola securing a spot on the calendar for the next few years is an interesting development given F1’s packed 23-race schedule and its promise not to go beyond that record number of grands prix.
One factor that may have helped Imola is the fall of the Russian Grand Prix. After initially only axing the 2022 race, F1 has cancelled the race’s entire contract in the wake of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.
Even without Russia, though, other races will have to be dropped if F1 is to avoid expanding to a 24 or 25-race schedule.
China should return next year, Qatar will begin a long-term deal, and another American race in Las Vegas has been mooted.
Any race that falls off in future seasons may not be dropped permanently as one solution F1 has long mooted is the prospect of ‘rotating’ grands prix.
