By Alan Baldwin
IMOLA, Italy (Reuters) -Max Verstappen has won four times in a row at Imola but a fifth next year looks unlikely with Formula One set to drop the Italian circuit.
There is no contract for 2026 and Formula One chief executive Stefano Domenicali, who was born and grew up in the town near Bologna, has said it will be hard to justify Italy having two races given the demand from elsewhere.
Four-times world champion Verstappen said he understood, with Monza having a contract to 2031 for the Italian Grand Prix, but also felt the loss.
“Losing these kind of tracks is a shame. I get it from F1’s side of things, of course — the new tracks that we are going to,” said the Red Bull driver after winning Sunday’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.
“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.
“Personally, when I just speak about the enjoyment of driving, it’s these kind of tracks that made me fall in love with racing in general,” he added. “In go-karting even, because you have the same thing in karting where some tracks are more special than others.”
Formula One is due to gain Madrid as a new venue next year, and something will have to give to keep the calendar at 24 rounds.
Las Vegas and Miami have been added in recent years and there is talk of Africa, Thailand and a second race in China. Germany also has no race, despite Audi joining Mercedes on the grid next year.
Imola — old-style, with the paddock hemmed in by the river Santerno and the narrow track — seems destined to be dropped after making a return during the pandemic years, unless a deal can be done on a rotational basis with other venues.
It is a circuit very much to Verstappen’s liking, on Ferrari’s home turf and with a heavy emotional and historical pull after the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger in 1994.
Old favourites come and go, sometimes because they are simply outdated as cars get bigger and faster and more hospitality and better access is required.
The Dutch driver’s home race on the dunes at Zandvoort — a throwback to yesteryear if ever there was one — will fall off the calendar after next year and Barcelona, where Verstappen took his first F1 win in 2016, also faces an uncertain future.
Belgium’s Spa-Francorchamps, a driver favourite, will be absent in 2028 and 2030 as part of its new deal.
“When you started watching Formula One, there were always these few tracks where you just… I don’t know, you look at the speeds, you look at how difficult they are to master,” said Verstappen.
“The history of the sport at certain tracks. You know, it’s all very special and gives you a bit more emotion to things. So, yeah, it’s definitely a shame for me personally, but what can I do about it?”
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Christian Radnedge)
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