Max Verstappen said he will miss racing at Imola after winning Formula 1’s last race at the circuit for the foreseeable future.
Although the 2026 F1 calendar has not been announced yet, Imola is not expected to feature among its 24 races. F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has already indicated it will not return next year.
“I love driving here,” said Verstappen, whose victory on Sunday was his fourth in a row at the track.
However he said he understood why F1 is increasingly replacing heritage venues with races in target markets such as the USA.
“Losing these kind of tracks is a shame,” he said. “I get it from F1’s side of things, of course — the new tracks that we are going to. You have to see it from a sportive side and a financial side, right? If you want to grow the business and make it more popular, I get it.
“For me, of course, personally, when I just speak about the enjoyment of driving, it’s this kind of tracks that made me fall in love with racing in general — in go-karting, even, because you have the same thing in karting where some tracks are more special than others.
“When you start watching Formula 1, there were always these few tracks where you just look at the speeds, you look at how difficult they are to master and the history of the sport at certain tracks. It’s all very special and gives you a bit more emotion.
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“So it’s definitely a shame for me personally, but what can I do about it?”
Oscar Piastri is concerned F1 is going too far in removing classic circuits in favour of temporary venues which drivers often find less challenging.
“We need to be careful not to lose all the historical tracks that have been here forever because at least 75% of them are the favourites for the drivers,” he said.
“If you ask the drivers their top three favourites, it’s probably a mix of Silverstone, Suzuka, Spa, here and probably Zandvoort. Here is probably going to disappear, now Zandvoort is disappearing, Spa is [going] on rotation. I think Monza is pretty safe — we’ve got some other problems if Monza disappears.
“But we do need to be careful to keep all these tracks. A qualifying session around Imola and tracks like Imola are definitely more exciting than some other tracks on the calendar. But it’s obviously a balance.”
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