Last weekend’s Emilia Romigna Grand Prix at Imola was either postponed or cancelled due to flooding in the area that claimed eight lives. The FIA does not know if or when it might be able to reschedule the race. Cancellations of F1 races in the modern era have been a rarity. In the ‘50s, races were often cancelled for various reasons. In 1955, after a disaster at Le Mans when a car crashed into a packed grandstand, killing the French driver Pierre Sarthe and 83 spectators and injuring another 180, several Grand Prix were cancelled, even though the Le Mans 24-hour race is a sportscar event.
In 1969, the Belgian GP was cancelled because the Grand Prix Drivers Association (GPDA), led by Jackie Stewart - who, after the death of his great friend and rival Jim Clark at Hockenheim in 1968, became a safety campaigner - had insisted the officials implement alterations to make the circuit safer. When they refused, the drivers decided not to race, which did not impress the late motorsport journalist Denis Jenkinson, or “Jenks”, as he was known. He wrote in Motorsport magazine: “I have always thought that one of the enduring features of a Grand Prix driver was that he has GUTS and would accept a challenge that normal people like you and I would not be brave enough to face; now I am not sure.”
Stewart, of course, is now recognised as the person who forced the FIA to make safety changes, which these days some might argue have gone too far. But you need only check out the Netflix footage of Romain Grosjean’s fireball crash in the 2020 Bahrain GP, which he walked away from, to realize why safety measures have mostly saved drivers’ lives since that fateful weekend at Imola in 1994, when Roland Ratzenbeger crashed and died on the Saturday, and three-time world champion Ayrton Senna died after crashing out of the race when he was leading. In the aftermath of Senna’s death, several circuits were altered to make them safer, such as the sweeping curve leading on to the main straight at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, which became a chicane. However, for this year’s race, the chicane will be gone and F1 cars will use the original circuit, which Moto GP has always done.
In recent times, the 2011 Bahrain GP was cancelled due to political unrest, when several anti-government protesters were killed. In 2020, just one hour before the first practice was due to begin in the season-opening event in Melbourne, Australia, with fans waiting at the gate to get in, the race was cancelled due to one McLaren mechanic getting Covid. The start of the season was in fact delayed until July that year, as the pandemic spread around the world.
Last weekend’s race wasn’t called off because of driver concerns, political unrest or health reasons, but rather because of Mother Nature. The decision to postpone the event was made after a meeting between Formula 1, the president of the FIA, local authorities, government ministers and the president of the Automobile Club of Italy. For the president and CEO of Formula 1, Stefano Domenicali, it was personal.
