Ferrari Finali Mondiali, Mugello, 2019

Mugello could host Ferrari’s 1,000th race following Italian Grand Prix

2020 F1 season

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Ferrari could celebrate its 1,000th world championship race appearance in front of its home crowd this year at a new venue for the series.

Multiple sources confirmed to RaceFans Formula 1 has contacted Ferrari about the possibility of using its Mugello circuit to host a round of this year’s world championship one week after the Italian Grand Prix.

Ferrari named its 2020 F1 car the SF1000 in recognition of its upcoming 1,000th race start in the world championship. Following the eight race dates which were confirmed by Formula 1 Management last week, its 999th start will now fall on the Italian Grand Prix weekend at Monza in September.

F1 has already arranged for back-to-back races to take place in Austria and Britain. Doing the same in Italy would allow Ferrari to mark its milestone race on home ground – a proposal the team is understood to have responded favourably to.

The preferred venue for the race is the 5.2-kilometre Mugello circuit in Tuscany, which has never previously held a championship event. The series last visited the track in 2012 for an in-season test. F1 could run at Mugello one week after it visits Monza, forming a third consecutive triple-header of events.

Italy has other circuits which meet the FIA grade one standard needed to hold an F1 race. However RaceFans understands one of those, Imola, is not an option due to restrictions on gatherings in the area arising from the pandemic. Ferrari’s other circuit, Fiorano, also holds grade one status, but is used only for testing.

Formula 1 was due to race in Singapore two weeks after the Italian Grand Prix. However the street circuit race is in doubt as the promoters have said it will only go ahead if it can be held on its original date of September 20th with fans present, which may prove impossible due to pandemic restrictions.

Ferrari held its annual ‘Finali Mondiali’ (world finals) event at Mugello last year (pictured).

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Pictures: F1 at Mugello

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57 comments on “Mugello could host Ferrari’s 1,000th race following Italian Grand Prix”

  1. While that circuit is good for MotoGp and produces some exciting races for F1 its going to be quite boring.

    1. It’s an awesome circuit. F1 cars would look great on it. Maybe not the best in terms of racing, but like Zandvoort, a proper, old-school track.

      1. @keithcollantine that was basically what the drivers who tested there in 2012 said – an interesting track if you were on your own, but an awful circuit to race at or to have to follow another car.

        1. Jose Lopes da Silva
          8th June 2020, 23:07

          Which circuits are good to follow another car?

          1. Very good point!

    2. still better than the threat of two races at Sochi!

      1. I personally would really love to see F1 race at Aragon(if possible FIM config) rather than Sochi or Mugello.

        1. Why Aragon?! In terms of close racing it would be just as bad as Mugello and it’s got asphalt run-off everywhere. Drivers would be constantly exceeding track limits.
          No, thanks.

          IMO Mugello would be a far better choice, also in terms of logistics. The problem with Motorland Aragon is, that you really can’t slot it anywhere other than after Monza. It would make a lot more sense to stay in Italy than to move to Spain for one race.

          1. Really curious how F1 cars get around Aragon especially the turn 16 hairpin and corkscrew(turn 8-9). Aragon is not too far from Barcelona(~270kms) so it can be added relatively easily after or before Spanish GP event.
            For the Italian GPs San Marino(if the circuit has been upgraded in terms of safety) would also be good consideration and it was on F1 calander till 2006.

          2. @chaitanya
            The problem is that Barcelona is already part of a triple-header (2x Silverstone + Barcelona). If you’d put Aragon after Barcelona, it will result in 6 back-to-back races. That’s insane and would never work!

          3. We already have 6 races in 7 weeks so yeah adding another one will be very difficult. Hopefully someday we will see F1 cars racing at Aragon even if its not this year.

          4. Nah, at least it has a hairpin after a straight.

  2. This would be great.
    And best of all Ferrari can pay for it from its $50M special bonus which they cannot spend on the car anyways.

  3. Shadow drop!

  4. I’ve driven the circuit on Assetto Corsa and it has a nice flow, but wouldn’t it be better to do another weekend in Monza as everyone will already be there to minimize travelling between circuits?

    1. Although I would love to see Mugello host a race, I think you hit the nail on the head here.

    2. Come on, I will already be bored out of my mind after two Austrian GPs and two Silverstones. Please, no more double headers.

  5. This sounds like an interesting an exciting idea. However, if it is only going to be a one-off is there much point? Behind closed doors as well so very few people will really get to experience the event.

  6. Codemasters have left the chat.

    1. Victor (@victorandrei1999)
      8th June 2020, 19:06

      This is really funny! 😂

    2. Ha! Ha!

  7. This year a great chance to experiment with new tracks we might never see. I’d rather this than repeating a race two weeks in a row.

  8. I just noticed there are two Ferrari cars in the main picture.

    1. @drycrust Actually, there’s four, but it’s very hard to make them all out. If you click the main image and go to the previous image you can see them better:

      https://www.racefans.net/2019/11/15/racefans-round-up-15-11-2/racefansdotnet-20191027-145157-4/

  9. Mugello is a great circuit with a lot of high/medium speed sweeping corners that have a nice flow…. But I don’t expect it to be especially good from a racing perspective.

    Certainly other car races i’ve seen at Mugello (Can’t speak for the bikes as I don’t watch them) have been pretty dull as they just get really strung out through the middle sector where following is difficult. And I expect that issue to be worse for F1 as it’s much harder to follow than in the lower categories.

    1. It’s a great circuit for bikes – the MotoGP race there last year was one of the best I’ve seen, and I’ve been watching them for the last fifteen years or so.

    2. but it has a long main straight to make up for it, which drs would be good at

  10. I’m glad we might be getting some unscheduled races, but I don’t expect much from Mugello under normal circumstances. It’s a bit of a borefest really, the turns seem to be all the same and apart from the straight, it’s one long long technical sector. Something like Barcelona.

    1. I rather like Barcelona.

  11. Yes yes yes and yes again! Please make this happen.

    For those who say that it’s a bad circuit for racing:
    • Hungaroring is a tight circuit with a single medium-size straight (0.8 km) and many fast bends, as is Mugello with a bigger straight (1.2 km), and usually produced good races.
    • It’s a almost unknown circuit to the teams, definately unknown on tyre wear and the fast bends might make it unpredictable.
    • Middle of September in the Italian mountains, it might rain and give us a cracker.
    • What would you rather watch? Cars going through fast bends with an epic scenery in the background….or infinite 90-degree corners scattered around a supermarket parking lot that’s called “Sochi Autodrom”?

    1. Completely agree! I can’t find anything bad to say about this. I think it’s a fantastic idea.

    2. @black agree with all your points! I’m glad I’m not the only one super excited if this happens.

    3. @black well, when drivers tested there in 2012, they noted that it was not easy to follow others through most of the lap and the racing line was quite narrow, meaning that passing was really only possible into Turn 1 – and other posters have noted that other racing series that have competed there have reported a similar trend.

      Furthermore, the fact that it would also be an unknown circuit to Pirelli means that Pirelli are likely to err for a more conservative approach in tyre choice, which is the approach they’ve tended to take to other new circuits.

      As for the climate, rain is not that much more likely in Mugello in September than it is in Monza, nor is average rainfall that much higher, so it’s unlikely that will be much of a differentiator either.

      1. Well the same applies for Hungaroring, they have the same width and passing is only possible in turn 1…yet Hungaroring is 7th out of 29 on our rate-the-race list above beloved (and wide flat-out) circuits like Sepang, Montreal and Monza.

        Meanwhile the teams and drivers seemed to love it:

        […] “Spectacular”, “Incredibly fast” and “Stunning” are just some of the reactions from the F1 drivers at the test. […] Mugello is an atypical circuit and only prepares them for Spa and to half of Silverstone.

        Mark Webber:

        It would be amazing to hold a Grand Prix here, but it’s too fast for a test; in the calendar there isn’t another track like it. Did 10 dry laps today around Mugello, which is the same as doing 1000 laps around Abu Dhabi track in terms of satisfaction.

        Daniel Ricciardo:

        Love driving the beast (presumably his HRT in 2012) round here. Awesome high speed circuit.

        As for Pirelli, they most likely bring their hardest compounds…and so what? In 2019 they brought their hardest at Bahrain, Spain, Silverstone, Spa, Suzuka and we had great races to most of them, with the obvious exception of Barcelona where teams test the cars so much, that the drivers can practicly stage a virtual GP while they’re sleeping just by the sheer amount of data they have from there.

        And in the end of the day, it’s new circuit (to the calendar), that the drivers love it, the teams think it’s atypical and difficult to master, it’s beautiful, super fast and filled entirely with gravel traps!!! (now let’s see who’s going to moan about track limits…). Even if the single race we’ll have there ends up boring, i’m sure i’m going to remember it more fondly than almost all the races in Sochi, Yas Marina and Barcelona.

        1. Cheers on the quality post! I doubt Mugello will get the nod, but it would be epic. Certainly, Liberty Media is open to positive or negative reaction to the public proposal of a novel race, but, unfortunately, isolating the circus is currently the safest way of operating in this season.

        2. @black He drove for STR in 2012. HRT the previous season.

          1. @jerejj You’re right. Also Hungaroring is 8th/29, if exclude circuits with 3 races or less like Nurburgring (not many data) it’s 7th/24.
            Apparently i shouldn’t be writing comments after midnight :P

        3. @black it’s peculiar in a way that you don’t really seem to be building a case for Mugello on its own merits as much as instead trying to project the merits of another circuit onto it. As an aside, for a long time the Hungaroring was not that popular amongst the fans – until the last five or so years ago, it was fairly common for people to complain on this site about the races being fairly processional because of the fact that it was so difficult to pass somebody (just look at, say, 2010 and the comments there about how easy it was for Alonso to hold Vettel back, despite Vettel having a vastly quicker car).

          Equally, quite a few of those points were also applied to Paul Ricard when that was proposed for being reintroduced onto the calendar (unknown track, set in a mountainous region and with high average speeds) – and I somehow doubt that you look back on the races held there with great fondness.

          1. I’ve said what needed to be said about Mugello, super fast track, gravel traps, the drivers love it. The point i made about Hungaroring is that people moan that a track like Mugello could be added as an one-off event this year and without the modern cars having ever raced there and many have already come to the conclusion “it won’t produce good racing” or “it’s not suitable for modern cars” as if we’ve raced there for a decade…yet we’ve been racing in Hungary (the most similar circuit to Mugello i can think of) and we have had great races in the recent past despite all the factors (narrow, single small straight, many fast corners that the cars can’t folllow) pointing otherwise.

            As an aside, for a long time the Hungaroring was not that popular amongst the fans – until the last five or so years ago, it was fairly common for people to complain on this site about the races being fairly processional because of the fact that it was so difficult to pass somebody

            As you said, a long time ago. I’m not proposing staging a GP in Mugello in 2010… The last 5 years in Hungaroring, even with the wide cars that produce tons of downforce, we’ve had great races there.

            Equally, quite a few of those points were also applied to Paul Ricard

            Well Mugello is exactly like Paul Ricard…apart the thousand miles of tarmac run off, the slow chicanes that most cars cut them and moan about track limits, the fact that drivers don’t like it and a pointless chicane that cuts the big straight in the middle just because “we have a big grandstand there and it be a shame not to fill it”…

            Even if you ignore all other factors, similarity to other circuits etc… when the question is “would you like a new race (especially when we struggle to reach the threshold of 15 for this year)?” and the “new circuit” isn’t a copy of Sochi, Yas Marina, Paul Ricard etc…i can’t see a reason why the answer should be “No, thanks, we’ll stick with a 8-10 race championship.”

  12. I’m mostly impressed by the fact that Fiorano holds grade 1 status. It looks like a big karting track you would build on a backyard to me. I suspect the Ferrari badge attached to it had something to do with it being promoted to top class

  13. Mugello is an awesome circuit but it’s gonna be difficult to overtake except in San Donato (Turn 1). I’d love to see the cars taking Arrabbiata corners flat out in qualy mode.

  14. Oh yes please!! I love Mugello as a circuit.

  15. 😯 gravel traps!! 😁

    1. Thank MotoGP for those.

    1. Great sound!

  16. Yes, please! Mugello is an awesome track, super fast and flowing + it has gravel traps all around.
    I know the racing might not be the best there, because of its high number of medium- and high-speed corners, but I’d rather watch a boring race there than another one in Soči.
    I remember Mark Webber saying after the test in 2012: “A single lap around Mugello is more fun than 100 laps around Yas Marina.” 😅

    Another positive feature is that the teams won’t have any useful data from the past, because the 2012 test is useless to compare to, as the 2020 cars are vastly different from the 2012 ones.

    Please, F1! Make it happen!!!

  17. Neil (@neilosjames)
    8th June 2020, 23:13

    Why not?

    Not convinced it’d be great to race on but it’d be something a bit different, and driver feedback after that test a while back was positive.

  18. I am OBVIOUSLY in favour of this haha. Seriously though this would be amazing. Always wanted to see an F1 race around Mugello.

  19. I’m not sure that I’m all that keen on F1 just heading off to a different track because it suits its agenda.

    Surely if the 1000th race was that important to F1 and to Ferrari, it should be held at Monza and not at a circuit not previously used for racing? I’d have thought Monza would be falling over itself to get that race.

    1. @dbradock Indeed. Holding it in Monza would also be more ideal for logistical reasons as everyone’s already going to be there, so it would be better to do another weekend on the same circuit than moving to a different one.

      1. My guess is, they are talking with Monza about how much Liberty will have to pay to host the race there. And so they get an alternative quotation to push Monza’s prize down @dbradock, @jerejj.

  20. “70th Anniversary GP” and “Ferrari’s 1000th GP”? :)

  21. AJ (@asleepatthewheel)
    9th June 2020, 5:44

    If they can race at Paul Ricard, they might as well race at Mugello. But logically and logistically speaking, it makes sense to have 2 races at Monza.

  22. Make. This. Happen.

Comments are closed.