On 3 May 1981, Formula 1 held its first San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, and Nelson Piquet won it. The Brazilian drove his Brabham BT49C to the head of a result that placed Riccardo Patrese second and Carlos Reutemann third, making for a podium without a single obvious narrative thread except that Piquet, as was his habit during 1981, was fast when it mattered. The race itself was unremarkable by the dramatic standards Imola would later set. The occasion was not. Formula 1 had arrived at a circuit that would go on to host some of the most important and most painful days in the sport’s history.
A second Italian race
The San Marino Grand Prix existed largely as a solution to a scheduling problem with a rather elegant Italian twist. Italy already had its Grand Prix at Monza.
Nelson Piquet Souto Maior
- Races (starts):203
- Wins:23
- Podiums:60
- Pole positions:24
- Fastest laps:23
- Driver of the Day:0
- World titles:3
- Points (total):485.5
Data source: F1DB (GitHub)
Imola, a circuit near Bologna in the Emilia-Romagna region, had ambitions and facilities capable of hosting a world championship round, but could not simply displace the Italian Grand Prix.
The San Marino name was the compromise, borrowing the identity of the small independent republic nestled within the Italian peninsula and giving the calendar a second Italian race in all but name.
The circuit itself, the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, named after Enzo Ferrari’s son who died young, had been a serious racing venue for years.
It was fast, technical, demanding and unlike Monza in character: more enclosed, more varied in rhythm, with corners that rewarded commitment and punished error in roughly equal measure.
Piquet and the Brabham
Piquet arrived at Imola in the middle of what would become a world championship season, eventually winning his first title that year in one of the most contentious finales F1 has produced.
The Brabham BT49C was a capable car, and Piquet was in the form that defined his best years: precise, quietly aggressive, not given to the theatrical statements his rivals sometimes preferred.
His win at Imola was controlled rather than spectacular.
Patrese, also in a Brabham, finished second, giving the team a dominant one-two.
Reutemann, the Williams driver who would lead the championship for much of 1981 before it slipped away from him in the final round in Las Vegas, took third.
What Imola would become
The 1981 race was the beginning of a relationship between Formula 1 and Imola that would run until 2006 and accumulate an extraordinary weight of history.
The circuit hosted Gilles Villeneuve’s last competitive laps in 1982, the weekend that ended with his death in qualifying at Zolder shortly after. It hosted the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix itself, a race defined by a boycott that reduced the field and a finish that nobody had predicted.
And it hosted 1994, the darkest weekend in modern Formula 1. Roland Ratzenberger died in qualifying. Ayrton Senna died in the race. The sport came to Imola every spring for over a decade after that and could never entirely separate the circuit from what happened there.
Against all of that, the first San Marino Grand Prix was a quiet beginning. A Brabham one-two, a Reutemann podium, a circuit taking its place on the world championship calendar.
Nothing that day suggested what Imola would mean to Formula 1 by the time the relationship ended. Most beginnings do not.
