Mercedes AMG 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix: F1 Preview

Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1: (April 13, 2021) Formula 1 goes to historic Imola for the second round of the 2021 season: the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Toto speaks to Imola

The 2021 F1 season certainly started in spectacular style. It was an encouraging first race that came with a double podium from Bahrain 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 have no illusions that this will be a straightforward season. The car still has no pace on one lap and Red Bull seems to be ahead at the moment. We are working very hard to fill the void and this is a challenge that we enjoy.

We were excited to get back on track during this three-week break and the second lap, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, is just around the corner. Imola is a historic and iconic place, and it’s a track that riders really enjoy with its curving nature, high speeds and variety of curve types.

It’s a pretty tight track that makes overtaking difficult, but this focuses more on strategy and makes qualifying even more important. We all enjoyed returning to Imola in 2020 after a 14 year hiatus, and that got even more special because we won our seventh Constructors’ Championship that weekend. We look forward to being there again this weekend and seeing what the 2021 race has in store!

Fact file: Emilia Romagna Grand Prix

Construction of the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo and Dino Ferrari began in 1950 and the track hosted their first race in 1953.

The circuit has hosted F1 races under three different names: the San Marino Grand Prix, the Italian Grand Prix and the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

In contrast to more modern tracks, the track width at Imola is quite narrow, which makes overtaking more difficult and places greater emphasis on the strategy of catching up on positions.

The length of the pit lane and the time spent driving through the pit are also an interesting strategic factor. At 528 meters, Imola’s pit lane is the longest of all F1 tracks in 2021 and also corresponds to the longest pit lane time (driving through at a top speed of 80 km / h) of 24.8 seconds.

Along with Interlagos, Baku, COTA, Jeddah, Marina Bay and Yas Marina, Imola is one of seven anti-clockwise routes on the 2021 F1 calendar.

The distance of 605 meters from pole position to the first braking zone is the third longest on the calendar.

73% of the lap time is driven at full throttle, the third highest percentage of the 2021 F1 tracks. This includes 15 seconds of lap time from foot to ground from the exit of the last corner to the braking zone for corner 2.

Imola has an average top speed of 200 km / h, the third highest on the F1 calendar in 2021, behind Silverstone (approx. 205 km / h) and Suzuka (approx. 210 km / h).

The track surface is particularly bumpy, which means teams need to find the right compromise between driving (and how well the car absorbs the bumps) and the aero (and how aggressive it is to get the maximum aero performance).

Imola is a stop-start in nature, similar to Montreal. Therefore it is a route with a fairly high braking power, although there are no “heavy” braking zones (defined by reaching 4 g for more than 0.4 s)

Another penalty for the brakes is the short straight lengths, which means the brakes don’t have as much time to cool down between braking events.

At Imola, there are a variety of cornering types and speeds that require a car with a wider control window – the exact opposite of a circuit like Sochi, which has a much narrower cornering speed window.

Because of the wider cornering speed window at Imola, more compromises are required in the vehicle’s furnishing details in order for it to perform better on this varied mix of corner types.

Imola has the highest accelerations that can be seen all year round at corner exit (what we call gLong forces), due to the very high grip on the asphalt of the track and the very straight corner exit lines – in contrast to the long, curved exits who have favourited at other F1 venues like Silverstone. The average longitudinal acceleration at the corner exit in Imola is 1.5 g.

Stat Attack: Imola and Beyond

2021 schedule for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix

Track records – Mercedes F1 at the international Autodrom of Enzo and Dino Ferrari

Technical statistics – season to date (Bahrain pre-season test to date)

Mercedes-Benz in Formula 1