Formula 1 races at Imola in Italy for possibly the last time this weekend and former Top Gear and The Grand Tour host Jeremy Clarkson will be among those sad to see it go
Imola looks likely to lose its status as a Formula 1 venue after this weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. But many will be sad to see it exit the sport and Jeremy Clarkson is clearly one of those who would love to see F1 find a way to continue racing there.
He wrote on social media: “Imola may not produce the best racing but to drive round, it’s my favourite track in the world.” But despite the former Top Gear presenter’s seal of approval, the writing looks to be on the wall for the Italian venue.
Imola is out of contract this year and is one of only two current venues which does not have a legal guarantee of hosting a 2026 race. The other is Las Vegas, which has become a centrepiece of F1’s annual schedule and an extension on that front is a mere formality.
Next year will see the debut of the Madrid Grand Prix, which will take place on a new street circuit in the Spanish capital. And, with the calendar unlikely to expand beyond 24 races per year right now, it looks set to be Imola which makes room in 2026.
No announcement has yet been made over the Italian track’s future by F1 bosses, though chief executive Stefano Domenicali recently hinted at its potential exit from the sport when he said: “It will be increasingly difficult to have two races in the same country because interest in Formula 1 is growing.”
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The obvious exception is the United States, which has three annual races in Las Vegas, Miami and Austin because it is such a lucrative market for F1. But with the Italian Grand Prix being homed at Monza, north-east of Milan, and plenty of other cities across the globe wanting to grab a slice of the pie, there seems to be little hope for Imola.
Imola has disappeared from the sport before. It was once the venue of the San Marino Grand Prix for many years but that arrangement ended after the 2006 race and it was only in 2020, when F1 needed to cobble together a race calendar at short notice after the previous one was ruined by the Covid pandemic, that it returned.
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If the 2025 race is to be its last in F1, at least for a while, then the venue will be deeply missed by many. That includes Clarkson who, when replying to fans, spoke of why he visited Imola so often when he was working on Top Gear and The Grand Tour.
He wrote: “We did [go there], whenever possible. I just love the fact that the [start/finish] straight, isn’t. But at Imola, you whizz past people hanging their washing out. And they’ve nailed the safety fence to the trees.”
It is possible that Imola could become a rotational venue to make sure that the sport does at least return regularly. If that were to happen, it would follow in the footsteps of the Belgian Grand Prix with the iconic Spa-Francorchamps circuit also no longer guaranteed an annual slot in F1.
Circuit Zandvoort in the Netherlands has already announced that the 2026 Dutch Grand Prix will be its last. And the future of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is very much up in the air with its contract also expiring in 2026 and that new Madrid race angling to take over as the official Spanish Grand Prix in the future.
