All Info You Want to See Before the 2024 E. Romagna F1 GP Starts

The seventh round of the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship will take place this Sunday at Imola, with the 2024 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Will Red Bull  Return Back to Dominance?

After a couple of consecutive Sprint weekends, we return to a normal weekend with three Free Practice sessions. Will that return to normality be enough for Red Bull to regain its dominant style at Imola? We shall see, as McLaren is coming off a victory that was obtained in large part due to the performance of its upgraded MCL38 car and in smaller part due to a well-timed Safety Car.

At Imola, we could see Red Bull return to the top and perhaps place McLaren's performance in Miami in the "track-specific" category. However, we will only know after seeing the main sessions of the upcoming Grand Prix weekend and that will certainly be the interesting part of the upcoming round in Italy.

Moreover, Ferrari is expected to bring big updates to its SF-24 and Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz could have a big chance ahead of them in one of the brand's home Grands Prix.

Mercedes (George Russell and Sir Lewis Hamilton) is looking to improve things for the W15 in Imola. Hamilton is coming off his best weekend of 2024 and looked quite comfortable and took risks in the previous Grand Prix. However, Russell wasn't close to his teammate. Seeing the two Mercedes cars working in the same range has been rare this year, and the team will try to address that in the upcoming round.

Race winner Lando Norris of McLaren and Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing celebrate in parc ferme after the 2024 F1 Grand Prix of Miami

At the moment, Max Verstappen leads the World Drivers' Championship with four wins in six races and 136 points. Red Bull's designated number two driver, Sergio Pérez, follows with 103 points, and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc is third with 98 points.

The two non-Red Bull winners of 2024, Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz have 83 points each, but Norris is fourth on countback, due to his second place in China. Oscar Piastri is sixth in the second McLaren with 41 points, followed by Mercedes' George Russell with 37. Fernando Alonso is eighth for Aston Martin with 33 points, followed by Hamilton in the second Mercedes with 27 points.

Yuki Tsunoda rounds out the Top 10 with 14 big points for RB.

Red Bull leads the Constructors' Championship with 239 points, ahead of Ferrari (187) and McLaren (124).

Mercedes is fourth with 64 points, while Aston Martin is fifth (42 points). Aston Martin has struggled to score big this year, with Lance Stroll not finishing inside the points in the last three Grands Prix.

Williams (Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant) and Sauber (Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu) are the only teams without points scored in 2024.

2024 Emilia Romagna GP Facts & Figures

The race will be the fourth Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, and the official name is Formula 1 MSC Cruises Gran Premio Del made In Italy E Dell'Emilia-Romagna 2024.

The race title is the fifth different given to a GP in Italy, after the Italian, Pescara, San Marino, and Tuscan Grands Prix. Italy ranks second among countries with the most different GP titles (the US held eight different GPs with different names so far).

In terms of races held in the same country, it will be the 106th race in Italy (74 Italian GPs, 26 San Marino GPs, the 1957 Pescara GP, the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix, and the previous three editions of the Emilia Romagna GP). No other country has celebrated more than 79 races.

Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari Track Info

The Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, near Imola, will host a Formula 1 Grand Prix for the 31st time, and the fourth since 2006.

The track is named after Ferrari’s founder, Enzo Ferrari, and his first son, Alfredo “Alfredino” Ferrari, who died in 1956 at 24 years of age.

The anti-clockwise track at Imola is a 4.909 km circuit with 19 corners. The course is different from the traditional layout used at Imola, as the final chicane of the past does not exist anymore and there is just a straight uniting the Rivazza corners and the Variante Tamburello.

The 30 races previously held at Imola were the 1980 Italian Grand Prix, 26 San Marino Grands Prix between 1981 and 2006, and the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix from 2020 to 2022.

The 2023 race was canceled after the devastation caused by floods in the region which caused a tragedy in the region, with many fatalities.

The driver with the most wins at Imola is Michael Schumacher with seven wins (one with Benetton and six with Ferrari).

The most remembered race at Imola is the tragic 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, in which Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger and three-time champion Ayrton Senna lost their lives after accidents.

That race caused changes in the track (the Tamburello corner was flat-out at the time) and also produced many changes regarding the safety of everyone involved in a Formula 1 event.

The last two races at Imola before falling out of the calendar in 2006 were great, both with battles between Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher. Alonso won for Renault ahead of Schumacher in 2005, while Schumacher returned the favor in 2006.

Max Verstappen has won the last two editions of the race, both with some rain during the Grand Prix. Before the Dutchman's victories in 2021 and 2022, Lewis Hamilton had won at Imola in 202, commanding a Mercedes 1-2.

The current lap record in a Grand Prix comes from the 2020 race at Imola, set by Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes W11 with a 1:15.484 min lap.

2024 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix - Tyres

The dry tyres for the 2024 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix will be the C3 as P Zero White hard, C4 as P Zero Yellow Medium, and C5 as P Zero Red soft.

Pirelli explained their choice with a statement in a press release: “The Formula 1 World Championship returns to Europe over eight months on from the previous Grand Prix to be held on the Old Continent and in the same country, Italy, that hosted that race in Monza on 3rd September last. In fact, Italy has hosted a total of 105 world championship Grands Prix, the most of any country, 30 of them at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola.

This weekend’s race is only the fourth edition of the Gran Premio dell’Emilia-Romagna e del Made in Italy, previously held from 2020 to 2022, as last year’s event had to be cancelled because of floods that hit large parts of the region, causing some fatalities and devastation.

For the seventh round of the season, Pirelli has gone with the softest trio of dry tyre compounds: C3 as Hard, C4 as Medium and C5 as Soft. It will be the first time this trio will be put to the test at the Emilian track, although it was to have been the choice for last year’s cancelled event. In 2022, the selected compounds were C2, C3 and C4.

Imola is one of the oldest fixtures on the championship calendar, known for being very technical and therefore highlighting the skills of the drivers who have to tackle quite complex combinations of corners and braking zones.

Enzo Ferrari was one of the promoters of the project to build a circuit on the hills around Imola and he described it as a sort of “little Nurburgring.” Orginally, in 1957, the venue was named in memory of his son Dino, his own name being added after his death in 1988.

The track is not particularly hard in terms of the forces exerted on the tyres, even if the asphalt is still relatively abrasive, despite the fact that the last time resurfacing work was carried out on 70% of its almost five kilometre length dates back to 2011. With a busy programme of track action over the Grand Prix weekend, the road surface offers a good level of grip that increases the more the cars run.

With 19 corners (10 to the left and 9 to the right) and a significant 30 metre elevation change from the highest point to the lowest, the track is rather narrow and there is only one DRS zone, making overtaking far from easy.

Therefore, qualifying plays an important part in deciding the outcome of the race, which explains why it has never been won from lower than fifth on the grid and 19 times out of 30, the driver first past the chequered flag had started from the front row.

On paper, having the three softest compounds could produce more options in terms of pit stop strategy in a race that usually would require just one tyre change, especially as time lost in the pit lane here is one of the highest of the year.

There is also the strong possibility of the race being neutralised at some point, something that has happened in over 70% of races run at Imola to date. Recently, a few minor modifications have been made to the track, including the reintroduction of gravel on the outside of the Acque Minerali corners, leading to a much greater penalty for anyone going off at that point.

Thirty Grands Prix have been held alongside the banks of the Santerno river that runs past the circuit. The current name is the third to be attributed to the race at Imola. It first appeared on the calendar in 1980, the one and only time the Italian Grand Prix was held anywhere other than Monza. Then, from 1981 to 2006, Formula 1 raced in Emilia under the flag of the nearby Republic of San Marino. In the troubled times of Covid, racing’s blue riband category found a welcome in Imola as the Gran Premio dell’Emilia-Romagna, with the words “Made in Italy” added to its title as from the following year.

Of the 20 drivers entered this year, only Fernando Alonso raced at Imola when it was known as the San Marino Grand Prix. The Spaniard won in 2005 after a thrilling duel with Michael Schumacher, while the following year the positions were reversed between the two rivals.

The German is the most successful driver at Imola, with seven wins, six of them with Ferrari, one with Benetton, while Williams and Ferrari share the honours among the teams with eight apiece. When it comes to pole positions here, Ayrton Senna tops the list with 8, the last of which he secured on 30 April 1994, a day overshadowed by the death of the Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger.

The following day, 1st May, the same fate befell Ayrton in what was one of the most tragic weekends in the history of the sport. To mark the 30th anniversary of their deaths, this weekend a series of events have been organised by the promoter and the entire Formula 1 family."

The minimum starting pressures will be 25.5 psi (front) and 22.0 psi (rear).

2024 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix - Weather Forecast

Friday, May 17th - FP1 & FP2
Conditions: Sunny and pleasant
Max. temperature: 24°C
Chance of rain: 2%

Saturday, May 18th - FP3 & Qualifying
Conditions: Sunny and pleasant
Max. temperature: 26°C
Chance of rain: 4%

Sunday, May 19th - Race
Conditions: Scattered thunderstorms
Max. temperature: 23°C
Chance of rain: 63% at 15:00 hours

Who will be on the 2024 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix podium?

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing, 2nd position, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, 1st position, and Lando Norris, McLaren, 3rd position, on the podium during the Emilia Romagna GP at Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari on Sunday April 24, 2022

It is quite likely that Max Verstappen will keep his Saturday streak going and reach his eighth consecutive Pole Position. That feat would equal Ayrton Senna's F1 record, obtained between the 1988 Spanish and 1989 US Grands Prix.

Verstappen streak started in the 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, last season's final race.

Although Verstappen is the favorite for Saturday and Sunday, let us bet on McLaren keeping its pace from Miami and Lando Norris putting on another great display at Imola, where he's finished on the podium in the two recent events.

The prediction for the top three of the 2024 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix is 1. Lando Norris, 2. Max Verstappen, 3. Charles Leclerc.

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