The great unheralded Imola F1 drives

Imola will forever be remembered for the black weekend in 1994 that claimed the lives of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger that resulted in sweeping changes to Formula 1 safety. But for 27 consecutive years between 1980 and 2006, when it was a staple of the F1 calendar, it also had a reputation as a tough nut to crack that was especially hard on fuel and engines.

After hosting non-championship grands prix in 1963 and 1979 (the Imola GP won by Jim Clark and the Dino Ferrari GP by Niki Lauda), it briefly took the Italian GP away from Monza in 1980 before becoming a permanent fixture as the home of the San Marino GP the following year.

In that time it has delivered moments of brilliance in spades - Michael Schumacher's first Ferrari pole in the tardy F310 in 1996, a first win for his brother Ralf and the Williams-BMW combination in 2001, Fernando Alonso's superb defence from Michael in 2005 - but also some unheralded moments of excellence too.

In our list, we've included standout drives in middling machinery, unrewarded feats of brilliance blighted by mechanical woe and battling underdog performances in cars that rarely made it the distance.

In defining what qualifies as 'unheralded', we've applied the same criteria as our Nurburgring drives list in excluding podium finishes and victories, which means several worthy drives have to be discounted.

These include Nicola Larini's famous runner-up finish for Ferrari in 1994 - which he chose as the race of his life - along with Lauda's well-judged victory in 1979 a matter of weeks before quitting at Mosport and Michael Schumacher's brave victory hours after the death of his mother in 2003.

Villeneuve shows Ferrari mean business, 1981

Car: Ferrari 126CK
Finished: 7th

"The news from Imola is Ferrari are back." So began Nigel Roebuck's race report of the 1981 San Marino GP. On a weekend overshadowed by farcical scrutineering - as the Brabham hydro-pneumatic suspension system unsuccessfully protested in Argentina and subsequently adopted by Williams, among others, was deemed illegal after all along with the widely used flexible skirts - Gilles Villeneuve went some way to restoring credibility to Ferrari after a 1980 season that makes 2020 look like a riotous success by comparison.

Even the unwieldy SF1000 has managed two podium finishes in Charles Leclerc's hands, a feat unthinkable even for Villeneuve in that miserable campaign, as Ferrari slid from champions of 1979 to the depths of 10th in the constructors, three fifth places all it could shout about with the dire 312T5. It's 1981 replacement, the 126CK, wasn't exactly a world-beater but even the "rather agricultural chassis" - per Roebuck - in Villeneuve's hands could be a force to be reckoned with.

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At Imola, he was especially potent and the reliability of his V6 powerplant appeared the only thing that could stop him. "Ferrari's practice was highly dramatic, a series of engine failures punctuated by blistering laps," surmised Roebuck.

"Every lap brought a sharp intake of breath as we watched a driver in a car with more power than its chassis could comfortably handle" Nigel Roebuck on Villeneuve

Few expected the car to last in the race, but last it did. In wet but drying conditions, Villeneuve led away from pole ahead of fast-starting team-mate Didier Pironi before coming in for slicks on lap 14 - explaining later that the "brutal" power delivery was wearing his wet tyres out faster than he had anticipated. But no sooner had he rejoined when the rain returned, requiring a return to the pits for more wets after only two more laps. He was demoted to 14th and any hope of victory was lost, but so began a comeback that had Roebuck raving.

"The Quebecois put on a drive of sheer skill and joie de vivre which will stay in the mind forever," he wrote. "Every lap brought a sharp intake of breath as we watched a driver in a car with more power than its chassis could comfortably handle."

He got to within seconds of Hector Rebaque's fifth-placed Brabham and could feasibly have followed the Mexican past an ailing Pironi had the clutch not given up with two laps to go and dropped him out of the points to seventh - a poor reward for a sterling drive.

Win slips away from dominant Senna, 1985

Car: Lotus 95T
Finished: DNF

The history books record that Lotus driver Elio de Angelis won an extraordinary 1985 San Marino GP, perversely helped by a down-on-power Renault engine and failing brakes on a day when on-the-road winner Alain Prost didn't have quite enough fuel in reserve to make the 540kg minimum weight limit and was disqualified.

But the day's undoubted star was de Angelis' team-mate Ayrton Senna, fresh from his first win in the wet at Estoril, who put in a drive lauded by Roebuck as "perfect" and led all the way until the Lotus coughed and ran out of fuel four laps from home.

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Unlike Prost, who enjoyed the luxury of a fuel read-out in the cockpit of his McLaren, Senna had to manage his 220-litre fuel limit by intuition. He also lacked the new EF15 Renault engine in de Angelis' 95T, instead running the old EF4 unit. But what Roebuck described as a "freakishly fast race thanks to cool air and a race track washed clean by morning rain" would prove his undoing as the race "degenerated into farce" in the closing stages.

After taking pole on race tyres rather than qualifiers - claiming he struggled to get temperature into them - Senna had pulled away from de Angelis who, Roebuck noted, "needed very much more effort and road" to stay with his team-mate in the early laps.

"There seemed little likelihood of Senna's losing the lead, for he looked as serene and confident as he had done in the rains of Estoril," remarked Roebuck, "lapping back markers with scalpel efficiency."

Prost then attacked him "with an intensity rarely seen" but Senna was equal to the task of defending and, after making a break in traffic passing Patrick Tambay's Renault, both men turned down their boost. But for an incredulous Senna, it wasn't enough.

In another performance worthy of inclusion on this list, Stefan Johansson had moved up from a lowly 15th in only his second start for Ferrari to run second, turning the boost down at half-distance as agreed before the race with his team. After executing a superb move on de Angelis around the outside of Tosa, he then passed Prost and took the lead for a glorious half lap when Senna stopped, only to then run dry himself.

But while Johansson at least got a point for sixth when Prost was excluded, Senna got nothing. "And that," surmised Roebuck, "says it all."

Brundle delivers Zakspeed's finest hour, 1987

Car: Zakspeed 871
Finished: 5th

Martin Brundle's Formula 1 career is a story of what might have been. Only one of his 11 seasons in F1 was spent in anything approaching a top-line car - even then, the 1992 Benetton B192 was no match for that year's dominant Williams - and several seasons were wasted in machinery pitifully unworthy of his talent.

That was acutely true of 1987, a year where Brundle had hoped to be racing the second McLaren only to end up in a Zakspeed after a tip-off from ex-McLaren man Keke Rosberg (who had touted protégé Volker Weidler for a drive there) that Erich Zakowski's operation was on the up. But, in reality, it would be a season largely of frustration as the ambitious German outfit's efforts to do everything in-house - the only team other than Ferrari that year to build its own engine and chassis - all too often left Brundle walking back to the pits for an early bath.

"With a guy like Martin who went on to do bigger and better things, it was a little footnote in his history. But for Zakspeed it was a really big deal" Chris Murphy, Zakspeed designer

"We'd struggled with reliability, the engines were quite difficult," says the team's British designer Chris Murphy. "We were trying to push the engines to a high limit. You've probably heard the old cliché of 'we don't know what the power was because it was more than the dyno' and that really was true!"

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And yet, after starting the season in Brazil with the old 861B, on his first outing in the new 871 everything came good for Brundle at Imola. He was lapped twice by lead quartet Nigel Mansell, Senna, Michele Alboreto and Johansson (who beat him to the second McLaren seat) but on a day of heavy attrition - that year's champion Nelson Piquet was a non-starter after his heavy practice crash, while Prost and Gerhard Berger were both halted early on by electrical problems - he gained three places late on as the Benettons of Eddie Cheever and Teo Fabi both expired and Derek Warwick's Arrows ran out of fuel to collect two priceless points for fifth place. It would prove the only time a Zakspeed ever finished in the points in F1.

Murphy, who had engineered the sister car of Christian Danner, recalls the day with great fondness.

"It felt like we'd won, it was truly fantastic," he says. "With a guy like Martin who went on to do bigger and better things, it was a little footnote in his history. But for Zakspeed it was a really big deal."

Van de Poele's late heartbreak, 1991

Car: Modena Lamborghini 291
Finished: 9th

If you thought Luca Badoer's DNF in the 1999 European Grand Prix was the ultimate backmarker hard luck story, then look no further than Eric Van de Poele's unrewarded run on his grand prix debut at Imola in 1991 - a race he would still refer to years later as "the best ever of my life".

The cowboy hat-wearing Belgian, twice a winner in the 1990 International Formula 3000 championship, had the misfortune of graduating to F1 in the V12 Lamborghini-powered Modena, an ambitious project that wouldn't figure anywhere near the top of designer Mauro Forghieri's CV highlights. Van de Poele and team-mate Larini had to enter the pre-qualifying lottery and, although Larini made the cut for the Phoenix season opener where he chugged around to finish a thrice lapped seventh, they were back to earth at Interlagos where both cars failed to progress beyond Friday morning.

But then, at Imola, everything came right. Van de Poele scraped through pre-qualifying in fourth, just ahead of Emanuele Pirro's Scuderia Italia Dallara (as Larini missed out), then comfortably outpaced the AGS and Footwork cars to make the field in 21st. In a 2006 interview with Autosport, van de Poele explained: "Imola then was much more of a power track where you didn't need downforce. Our car didn't have much natural downforce, but it had a good top speed.

"Lamborghini tried to help me to get the best for that race. And the car was quite competitive compared to the other race tracks. I made the grid. Already it was a fantastic achievement so I could finally do free practice. Everything was new. Then I qualified."

In the tricky raceday conditions - both Prost and Berger floated off the track on the formation lap - van de Poele rose gradually through the field as attrition took its toll. But it would be unfair to pin everything on the misfortunes of others, as the Belgian kept the Lotus of Mika Hakkinen and three-time GP winner Thierry Boutsen's Ligier behind. When the Ford HB engine in Roberto Moreno's Benetton expired, van de Poele was lifted to the giddy height of fifth place, but on his final lap, the fuel pump broke.

"I was not so disappointed - my engineer and my mechanics were more so," he continued. "One of my mechanics saw that it was a telemetry mistake and that not enough fuel had gone in at the start. He then broke his leg by kicking the telemetry box back in the pits."

He was classified ninth in the end - Hakkinen claiming his first points for the fifth place that had rightfully been van de Poele's - but it was scant reward for his efforts and would mark the last time the #35 Lambo made a race all season long.

He would only start a further four grands prix in 1992 for Brabham and Fondmetal before switching to sportscars, with considerably more success. His five wins in the Spa 24 Hours make him the most successful driver in the history of the event.

Wendlinger's forgotten heroics, 1993

Car: Sauber C12
Finished: DNF

Karl Wendlinger's fourth place finish on that black day in 1994 went largely under the radar for understandable reasons. After qualifying tenth, three spots behind team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen, he had quietly moved forwards as others dropped out and challenged Hakkinen's McLaren all the way until a broken exhaust forced him to back off in the closing laps.

But the previous year, the Austrian had given an arguably greater performance which, under different circumstances, might have yielded the only podium of an F1 career blighted by the concussion he sustained at Monaco one year later.

True, to be a factor for the rostrum the Austrian had needed a long brake pedal to catch early leader Damon Hill out at Tosa and hydraulic failure to halt Senna, but Wendlinger put himself in position to spray Prost and former Mercedes Group C team-mate Schumacher with champagne by qualifying a fine fifth - 11 spots ahead of team-mate Lehto - for the second race in a row.

Wendlinger's car had been set up for full wet conditions with plenty of wing and therefore struggled for top speed on the straight

But unlike in the previous race at Donington, where his day was ended on lap one by an ambush from Michael Andretti's McLaren, he survived the first lap and held a strong sixth until his first pitstop on lap eight, switching to slicks. He gained the place he lost to Berger at the start when his compatriot's gearbox failed, then then held off Andretti in a spirited battle before the American spun off at the Variante Alta.

But his efforts to build on this were hampered by the obstinate Footwork of Aguri Suzuki, who was quick on the straights but, Roebuck noted, "painfully slow into the corners" due to heavy brake wear. Wendlinger's car had been set up for full wet conditions with plenty of wing and therefore struggled for top speed on the straight - which made him easy prey for Jean Alesi's Ferrari before the Frenchman's clutch broke.

But before Wendlinger could capitalise, his Ilmor engine began to lose power and he lost out to eventual third-placed man Brundle's Ligier at Tosa before pulling into the pits to retire with 13 laps to go.

Lehto took the glory for finishing fourth, despite his own motor blowing up with two laps to go, but it was Wendlinger who had merited the plaudits. Sauber's wait for a podium was eventually ended 40 races later, when Frentzen scaled the rostrum at Monza in 1995.

Electrifying launch bags Villeneuve points haul, 2000

Car: BAR 002
Finished: 5th

Jacques Villeneuve was in a desperate mood after the 1999 San Marino Grand Prix. Having qualified fifth, he didn't even get off the line when the transmission on his BAR failed. It was his third DNF in a row, and just one of 13 non-finishes in a disastrous maiden season for the much-anticipated new squad that had boldly predicted it would win its first race...

The contrast 12 months later couldn't have been greater, as the Canadian celebrated his 29th birthday with a gutsy drive to fifth that owed much to a demon getaway from ninth on the grid, gaining four spots by Turn 1.

"I don't know that I could ever do a start like that again," he said afterwards. "It was one of the best of my career, if not the best."

Villeneuve had scored BAR's first points with fourth in an attritional Australian Grand Prix, aided by mechanical woe for both McLarens and both Jordans, but Imola showed that BAR had made a clear step forward. He once again qualified inside the top 10, 0.69s up on team-mate Ricardo Zonta, and by Turn 1 had jumped ahead of Jordan pair Jarno Trulli and Frentzen, Eddie Irvine's Jaguar and Ralf Schumacher (Williams) before settling down to the task of defending for the rest of the race with only the Ferraris and McLarens ahead.

"For many the drive of the race came from Villeneuve," noted Roebuck. "Jacques drove flat out all day, keeping at bay a gaggle of quicker cars and never making a mistake of consequence." Running in low downforce trim, Villeneuve did enough in hustling the car through the corners to keep himself out of reach of the cars behind on the straights and, despite only setting the 11th fastest lap, finished less than a second ahead of Mika Salo's Sauber.

"He would have been jumped at the second stop by Schumacher but the Williams stopped with fuel pick-up problems," Autosport noted. "After that, Villeneuve just had to hold off Salo. He did, despite back pain caused by a new seat."

Villeneuve would also enjoy a giant-killing run to fourth in 2005 for Sauber, promoted two places when the BARs of Jenson Button (third) and Takuma Sato (fifth) were found to contain an illegal secondary fuel tank.

Button's best race, 2002

Car: Renault R202
Finished: 5th

"That was the best race of my F1 career," said Button after finishing fifth at Imola in 2002. That might seem strange given only two races previously, the Renault driver had only been elbowed out of a podium place at the Malaysian Grand Prix by Michael Schumacher on the final lap when a suspension problem reared its head, and following it up with another fourth place in Brazil - satisfyingly, ahead of the man who had replaced him at Williams for 2001, Juan Pablo Montoya.

But where first-lap tangles between Schumacher and Montoya at Sepang (Schumacher) and Interlagos (Montoya) had caused each to launch a recovery drive from the back, and others' unreliability at Sepang (engine failures for Rubens Barrichello's Ferrari and both McLarens) and Interlagos (wheel-hub failure for Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren) had boosted him up the order, Button's San Marino GP performance came without help from attrition or incident.

With a performance Autosport described as "faultless; quick, polished, error-free", he converted ninth on the grid into two points for fifth, the last car on the lead lap and ahead of David Coulthard's McLaren on merit.

His pass on Coulthard through the second pitstop phase - this being the era of refuelling when on-track passes were a precious rarity - was fully-earned

"We got to fifth place by being quick," he said. "It was a fantastic race for me, particularly on a circuit where I have had a nightmare for the past two seasons".

After jumping Nick Heidfeld's Sauber at the start, Button followed team-mate Jarno Trulli until the first round of stops and cleared the oversteering Italian when he came in for his service one lap later. He gained another place when Raikkonen retired with a broken exhaust, but his pass on Coulthard through the second pitstop phase - this being the era of refuelling when on-track passes were a precious rarity - was fully-earned.

"When DC made his late final stop, Button nailed two quick, hard laps. These got him ahead and he maintained the place to the end," summarised Autosport.

Button's proclivity for Imola wouldn't end there, the 2009 world champion scoring his first of eight career pole positions at the track for BAR in 2004.