The track was inaugurated as a semi-permanent venue in 1953. In its original configuration, which remained until 1972, the circuit had no chicanes; the runs from Acque Minerali to Rivazza, and from Rivazza all the way to Tosa through the pits and Tamburello, were simply straights with a few small bends. The first motorcycle races took place in April 1953, while the first car race followed in June 1954.
In April 1963, the circuit hosted its first Formula One race as a non-championship event, won by Jim Clark for Lotus. A further non-championship event at Imola in 1979 was won by Niki Lauda for Brabham-Alfa Romeo.
In 1980 Imola officially entered the Formula One World Championship calendar by hosting the 1980 Italian Grand Prix, the first time since the 1948 edition that the Autodromo Nazionale Monza did not host the Italian Grand Prix. The race was won by Nelson Piquet and was held over 60 laps of the 5.040 km (3.132 mi) circuit for a total distance of 300 kilometres. Its success led to the creation of a new race, the San Marino Grand Prix, established especially for Imola in 1981 and remaining on the calendar until 2006.
The flat-out Tamburello corner was bumpy and had dangerously little room between the track and a concrete wall without a tyre barrier, separated from the adjacent Santerno river only by that wall. The corner was the site of repeated serious accidents throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1987, Nelson Piquet crashed heavily during practice after a tyre failure and missed the race due to injury. In 1989, Gerhard Berger crashed his Ferrari at Tamburello after a front wing failure; the car ignited immediately after severe impact at 300 km/h (190 mph), but firefighters and medical personnel intervened quickly and Berger survived, missing only the 1989 Monaco Grand Prix due to burns to his hands. Michele Alboreto suffered a massive shunt while testing his Footwork Arrows at the circuit in 1991 but escaped injury. Riccardo Patrese also crashed at Tamburello while testing for the Williams team in 1992.
The 1994 San Marino Grand Prix brought multiple tragedies over its race weekend. During Friday practice, Rubens Barrichello was launched over a kerb into the top of a tyre barrier at the Variante Bassa, knocking him unconscious; swift medical intervention saved his life. On Saturday qualifying, Austrian Roland Ratzenberger died instantly after crashing head-on into a wall at over 310 km/h (190 mph) at the Villeneuve corner, following a front wing failure on his Simtek. During the race on Sunday, three-time World Champion Ayrton Senna's Williams sustained a broken steering column and he crashed into the concrete wall at Tamburello on Lap 7; Senna died in hospital several hours later. In separate incidents, several spectators and mechanics were also injured during the event.
In the aftermath, modifications were immediately made. The flat-out Tamburello corner was reduced to a 4th-gear left–right sweeper and a gravel trap was added. Villeneuve corner, previously a 6th-gear right-hander, was made a complementary 4th-gear sweeper also with a gravel trap. To retain some of the circuit's quickness, the chicane at Acque Minerali was eliminated and the Variante Bassa was straightened into a single chicane. Further changes were made before the 2006 Grand Prix, when the kerbs at the Variante Alta chicane were lowered considerably and the turn was tightened to reduce speeds.
The San Marino Grand Prix was removed from the Formula One calendar after 2006. Despite a planned return for 2017 — including a deal signed in July 2016 to host the Italian Grand Prix from that season — legal disputes over government funding awarded to Monza prevented this from occurring when Monza secured a new deal announced on 2 September 2016. Imola then withdrew its legal action on 8 November 2016.
Since 2007, the circuit underwent major revisions overseen by German F1 track architect Hermann Tilke. A bypass to the Variante Bassa chicane was added, making the run from Rivazza 2 to the first Tamburello chicane flat-out, though the chicane is retained for motorcycle races. The old pit garages and paddock were demolished and completely rebuilt, and the pitlane was extended and resurfaced. In June 2008, the FIA gave the track a "1T" rating permitting Formula One testing, and as of August 2011 the track received a full "1" FIA homologation rating following an inspection by Charlie Whiting.
In February 2020, the circuit submitted a bid to replace the Chinese Grand Prix. On 24 July 2020, Imola was confirmed on the 2020 Formula One World Championship calendar as the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, held over two days on 31 October and 1 November 2020. Imola continued on the calendar for 2021 and 2022. The 2023 Grand Prix was cancelled due to the 2023 Emilia-Romagna floods, which also affected the circuit via the flooding Santerno river. The circuit was due to host a Formula One Grand Prix until 2025. When Formula One visits Imola, it is considered a home circuit of Scuderia Ferrari, which is based in nearby Maranello.
The circuit's president is Giancarlo Minardi of the former Minardi F1 team.
Beyond Formula One, the circuit has hosted the Superbike World Championship from 2001 to 2006 and again since 2009, the FIM Motocross World Championship final round since 2018, the World Touring Car Championship in 2005, 2008, and 2009, and the European Le Mans Series. The 6 Hours of Imola was revived in 2011 as a Le Mans Series and Intercontinental Le Mans Cup event; it returned in 2022 to the European Le Mans Series calendar as the 4 Hours of Imola. A round of the World Endurance Championship 6 Hours of Imola appears on the current calendar.
The track was also used for the finishing circuit of the 1968 UCI Road World Championships, won by Italian cyclist Vittorio Adorni with a lead of 10 minutes and 10 seconds — the second largest winning margin in the history of the championships. The circuit hosted stage 11 of the 2015 Giro d'Italia (won by Ilnur Zakarin) and stage 12 of the 2018 Giro d'Italia (won by Sam Bennett), and served as start and finish of the 2020 UCI Road World Championships on 27 September 2020.
The official lap record for the current Grand Prix circuit layout is 1:15.484, set by Lewis Hamilton during the 2020 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. The unofficial all-time track record is 1:13.609, set by Valtteri Bottas in qualifying for the same race.
Sauro Pazzaglia — 1981 San Marino motorcycle Grand Prix (qualifying)
Roland Ratzenberger — 1994 San Marino Grand Prix (qualifying)
Ayrton Senna — 1994 San Marino Grand Prix (race)
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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