Rescheduling F1’s Imola GP race is more complicated than ever before. Here’s why
Michael Green
Published Apr 07, 2026
Following the swift cancellation of this weekend’s Formula One race at Imola, efforts in Emilia Romagna are now entirely focused on supporting those impacted by the flooding that has displaced over 5,000 people and claimed nine lives in the past week.
As those who had made the trip to Italy began to work out routes home for an unexpected race weekend off, more and more information emerged showing the extent of the flooding.
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AlphaTauri F1 driver Nyck de Vries wrote on Instagram that he got stuck in a village early Wednesday morning due to the flooding. He eventually ended up in a hotel that had to turn its lobby into a shelter for others stranded. The accompanying photos of his journey home through the mountains the following day showed muddy roads and significant amounts of water where it should not be.
Efforts are ongoing in Faenza, the town where the AlphaTauri team is based and home to many of its team members, to clear out flood water and assess the damage through a break in the rain on Thursday. On Thursday, AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda assisted locals with clean-up.
F1 personnel have now managed to re-enter the circuit at Imola, allowing them to de-rig the paddock infrastructure and get everything out of the track. All necessary equipment will be taken to Monaco for the next race, ensuring everything arrives on time and as planned.
For everyone involved in running the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, losing the race at such short notice is a considerable disappointment. Imola embodies so much of what F1 means by the ‘European heartland’ races that it remains committed to maintaining amid the influx of newer, glitzier events such as Miami and Las Vegas. It is the closest race to Ferrari’s home in Maranello, the loyal tifosi giving the event such an electric atmosphere, while the old-school circuit — no run-off to let mistakes go unpunished here — is popular among the drivers. Imagine NASCAR canceling Darlington or MLB without Wrigley for a whole summer.
Just as the decision to call off a grand prix is difficult due to the array of factors involved, finding a time to reschedule is equally complicated. And for F1, with such a congested calendar coming up with few remaining ‘bye weeks’, to borrow an American sporting term, it is likely to be a challenge that means Imola will have to wait until next year before returning to the schedule.
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Bigger schedule, more complications
F1’s remaining ‘bye weeks’ in 2023
| Dates | Notes |
|---|---|
June 10 - 11 | between Spanish GP & Canada GP |
June 24 - 25 | between Canada GP & Austria GP |
July 15 - 16 | between Great Britian GP & Hungary GP |
Aug. 5 - 20 | F1's "summer break" |
Sep. 9 - 10 | between Italy GP & Singapore GP |
Sep. 30 - Oct. 1 | between Japan GP & Qatar GP |
Oct. 14 - 15 | between Qatar GP & USA GP |
Nov. 11 - 12 | between Brazil GP & Las Vegas GP |
This weekend’s race was due to begin the first triple-header of the season, meaning it now becomes a back-to-back with Monaco and Spain. After Spain, there is a one-week gap before the Canadian Grand Prix on June 18, the only standalone event until Qatar in October. F1 will then squeeze four races into July — two double-headers of Austria/Great Britain and Hungary/Belgium — ahead of its summer break, a protected four-week window during which teams must pause operations for two weeks. It is an essential respite for all the drivers and teams through the season’s intensity.
Attempting to work Imola back into any of these windows would create runs of four or even five weekends in a row that simply would not be viable for F1. Three on the bounce is challenging enough; it’s a limit that would not be crossed.
After the summer break, the season will resume with the final two European rounds as the Netherlands and Italy go back-to-back. But once again, there is no reasonable window to add Imola around this point without shortening the summer break. Although there is a one-week gap after the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, it is followed by the Singapore/Japan double some six thousand miles away, again making it an unviable slot. The sheer logistical challenge means Imola could only realistically be paired with another European race to avoid diversions of thousands of miles. Imola’s window has realistically disappeared once we are into the run of flyaways across Asia, the Americans, and the Middle East to close out the year.
Yuki Tsunoda helping clean up Faenza, the city where AlphaTauri’s factory is based in Italy ❤️
(via radiodelta_1/IG)
— ESPN F1 (@ESPNF1) May 18, 2023
F1 will evaluate the options, but Imola already expects to sit out this year. Angelo Sticchi Damiana, the president of the Automobile Club d’Italia that oversees Italian motorsport, said on Wednesday it was “reasonable to imagine that the 2023 edition will be held in 2026.”
By this, he means that the year missed from the three-year contract for Imola will be added to the end, a practice common throughout the Covid-19 pandemic when races had to be canceled due to restrictions in place. Fans are already being offered the option to get a refund on their tickets – averaging around $400 – or to roll them over to the 2024 race.
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Whenever we return to Imola, it will be an event that is surely celebrated. Not only will it be a welcome return for F1, but it can serve as a moment of celebration for Emilia Romagna and hopefully be a symbol of its response and recovery.
(Top photo: Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)
