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Mercedes F1 Team released the 2020 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix preview featuring comments from team boss Toto Wolff. You can read the full preview below!
It was remarkable to see Lewis achieve his 92nd F1 win,” said Wolff.
“It’s like Michael often said: Records are there to be broken. We’re witnessing the amazing journey of one of the greatest athletes of our time and I’m excited to see where else it will take Lewis. We showed good pace in Portimão once we got the tyres into their window and left Portugal with the maximum number of points, building the gap in both championships on the way to our ultimate goal this year.
“Now our focus moves onto Imola, which is another F1 venue that we haven’t visited for a long time. It’s a track with lots of history but one that the Mercedes works team has never raced on before, so there are quite a few unknowns heading into the race weekend, and it’s great to be back in Italy once again for our third different race there this season.
“We’ll also be experiencing an unfamiliar schedule, with no running on Friday and just one practice session on Saturday morning. We had an unexpected preview of what this would be like at the Nürburgring after Friday’s running was cancelled because of the rain. We can expect a busy practice session where teams will try to maximise their running on track to prepare in the best way possible for Qualifying and the race; achieving the fastest possible rate of learning will be important to maximise our competitiveness for qualifying and the race.
“We’ve seen exciting races on the new tracks this year and the shorter weekend format will spice things up even more, so fans have an interesting weekend to look forward to,” concluded the Austrian.
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Mercedes Motorsport also sent out a short rundown of the Imola circuit’s history.
“Imola is uncharted territory for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team which has never before competed on the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari. However, the race track in Emilia Romagna has a famous history in the highest echelon of the sport, with 27 Grands Prix having been contested there between 1980 and 2006,” reads the preview.
“The first of these had the status of Italian Grand Prix, while all subsequent events went by the name of San Marino Grand Prix. On the occasion of the circuit returning to the itinerary, this year’s race will be known as the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix; it will be the third time this year that Italy has hosted a Grand Prix.
“The last time that the 4,909-metre circuit staged an F1 race was in 2006 when the winner was Michael Schumacher, who is by far the most successful driver at Imola with no fewer than seven victories. Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost each won three times.
“However, the name Imola is not only associated with exciting wheel-to-wheel action and great victories – it also brings back sad memories of the tragic deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna on the race weekend of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.”
Source: Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team and Mercedes-AMG Motorsport
