2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix - Preview

2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix - Preview

Formula One heads to historic Imola for the second round of the 2021 season: the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

  • Toto Talks Imola
  • Fact File: Emilia Romagna Grand Prix
  • Stat Attack: Imola and Beyond

Toto Talks Imola

The 2021 F1 season certainly began in spectacular style. It was an encouraging first race, coming away from Bahrain with a double podium, and hopefully the duel in the desert between us and Red Bull is a sign of what’s to come this year.

We may have won the first round, but we’re under no illusions that this will be a straightforward season. The car is still lacking pace over a single lap and Red Bull appear to have the edge right now. We’re pushing hard to close the gap, and this is a challenge we relish.

We’ve been eager to get back on track over this three-week break and round two, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, is just around the corner. Imola is such an historic and iconic venue, and it’s a track the drivers really enjoy, with its sweeping nature, high speeds and variety of corner types.

It’s quite a narrow track, which makes overtaking more difficult, but this puts more focus on strategy and makes qualifying even more crucial. We all enjoyed returning to Imola in 2020, after a 14-year gap, and it was made more special by the fact we secured our seventh Constructors’ championship on that weekend. We’re looking forward to being back there again this weekend and seeing what the 2021 race has in store!

Fact File: Emilia Romagna Grand Prix

  • Construction on the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari began in 1950 and the track hosted its first race in 1953.
  • The track has hosted F1 races under three different names: the San Marino Grand Prix, Italian Grand Prix and Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
  • Unlike more modern tracks, the circuit width is quite narrow at Imola, which makes overtaking more challenging and puts more emphasis on strategy to make up positions.
  • The length of the pit lane and time spent driving through the pits is also an interesting strategic factor. Imola’s pit lane is the longest of any 2021 F1 track, measuring 528 metres, and this also translates to the longest pit lane time (driving through at the speed limit of 80 km/h) of 24.8 seconds.
  • Imola is one of seven fully anti-clockwise tracks on the 2021 F1 calendar, alongside Interlagos, Baku, COTA, Jeddah, Marina Bay and Yas Marina.
  • The stretch of 605 metres from pole position to the first braking zone is the third-longest on the calendar.
  • 73% of the lap time is taken at full-throttle, the third-highest percentage of the 2021 F1 tracks. This includes 15 seconds of foot-to-the-floor lap time from the exit of the final corner to the braking zone for Turn 2.
  • Imola has an average apex speed of 200 km/h, the third highest on the 2021 F1 calendar, behind Silverstone (roughly 205 km/h) and Suzuka (around 210 km/h).
  • The track surface is particularly bumpy, meaning teams must find the right set-up compromise between the ride (and how well the car absorbs the bumps) and the aero (and how aggressive to go for the maximum aero performance).
  • Imola is quite stop-start in nature, similar to Montreal. Therefore, despite not having any ‘heavy’ braking zones (defined by achieving 4g for more than 0.4s), it is a track with a fairly high brake duty
  • Another punishing factor for the brakes is the short straight lengths, meaning the brakes don’t have as much time to cool between the braking events.
  • There’s a wide variety of corner types and speeds at Imola, requiring a car with a wider operating window – the complete opposite to a circuit like Sochi, for example, which has a much narrower corner speed window.
  • Because of the wider corner speed window at Imola, more compromise is needed on the set-up details of the car, to enable it to perform better in that varied mix of corner types.
  • Imola has the highest accelerations seen all year on corner exit (what we call, gLong forces), due to the very high grip measured on the track’s tarmac and the very straight corner exit lines - unlike the long, sweeping exits you see at other F1 venues such as Silverstone. The average longitudinal acceleration on corner exit at Imola is 1.5g.

Stat Attack: Imola and Beyond

2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix Timetable

Session

Local Time

(CEST)

Brackley

(BST)

Stuttgart

(CEST)

Practice 1 - Friday

11:00-12:00

10:00-11:00

11:00-12:00

Practice 2 - Friday

14:30-15:30

13:30-14:30

14:30-15:30

Practice 3 - Saturday

11:00-12:00

10:00-11:00

11:00-12:00

Qualifying - Saturday

14:00-15:00

13:00-14:00

14:00-15:00

Race - Sunday

15:00-17:00

14:00-16:00

15:00-17:00

Circuit Records – Mercedes F1 at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari

Starts

Wins

Podium

Places

Pole

Positions

Front Row

Places

Fastest

Laps

DNF

Mercedes

1

1

2

1

2

1

0

Lewis

Hamilton

1

1

1

0

1

1

0

Valtteri

Bottas

1

0

1

1

1

0

0

MB Power

14

2

10

6

10

2

7

Technical Stats – Season to Date (Bahrain Pre-Season Test to Present)

Laps

Completed

Distance

Covered (km)

Corners

Taken

Gear

Changes

PETRONAS

Fuel Injections

Mercedes

561

3,041

8,415

32,538

22,440,000

Lewis

Hamilton

281

1,523

4,215

16,298

11,240,000

Valtteri

Bottas

280

1,517

4,200

16,240

11,200,000

MB Power

1,754

8,044

26,310

101,732

70,160,000

Mercedes-Benz in Formula One

Starts

Wins

Podium

Places

Pole

Positions

Front Row

Places

Fastest

Laps

1-2

Finishes

Front Row

Lockouts

Mercedes

(All Time)

228

116

238

126

230

85

58

76

Mercedes (Since 2010)

216

107

221

118

210

76

53

74

Lewis

Hamilton

267

96

166

98

159

53

N/A

N/A

Valtteri

Bottas

157

9

57

16

40

16

N/A

N/A

MB Power

498

203

510

210

411

180

89

113

2021 Bahrain Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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2021 Bahrain Grand Prix, Saturday - LAT Images
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