Didier Pironi denied team orders to win and Patrick Tambay scored an emotional victory.
Despite being called the San Marino Grand Prix the race circuit at Imola is actually in Italy. Due to there already being an Italian Grand Prix the country’s second race was named after the small Republic. Situated in the town of Imola the circuit was later renamed the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari.
The first race took place at Imola in 1953 but it was another 10 years before Formula 1 cars visited the circuit. Jim Clark won the non-championship race there in 1963 and, in 1979, Niki Lauda won another non-championship Formula 1 race at Imola for Brabham.
In 1980 Monza, the home of the Italian Grand Prix, was dropped from the calendar and its place taken by Imola. Nelson Piquet won the race while local hero Gilles Villeneuve was lucky to escape from a sizeable accident which temporarily caused him to lose his sight.
The inaugural San Marino Grand Prix was held in 1981 and Piquet was again the winner. Villeneuve had taken pole, and set the fastest lap, but finished just outside the points in seventh. Riccardo Patrese finished an impressive second for Arrows with Carlos Reutemann third for Williams.
A depleted field lined up for the 1982 race, a result of an ongoing dispute between FISA and FOCA. Rene Arnoux secured pole with his team-mate Jean-Pierre Jabouille alongside, but their Renault’s both retired. Late in the race Villeneuve and Pironi had a huge lead over the rest, with the French-Canadian in front. Ferrari issued team orders to slow down and hold position but Pironi disregarded them to pass Villeneuve on the last lap. Villeneuve was furious and refused to speak to Pironi. Two weeks later he died in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix.
Patrick Tambay was a close friend of Villeneuve’s and had replaced him at Ferrari following the accident in Belgium. At Imola in 1983 he qualified third, the same position that Villeneuve had occupied the previous year. In the race he scored an emotional victory, driving the number 27 Ferrari. In the book, ‘Formula 1, The Autobiography’, Tambay is quoted speaking about the race:
“By coincidence, I qualified third this time, and when I lined my car up there, I completely broke down – I was crying like a child… Really, it wasn’t me driving the car that day – it was as if Gilles was with me all the way through. Number 27 should have won at Imola in ’82, and I felt a great peace that now it had.”
Piquet was in good form at Imola in 1984, winning pole and managing to set fastest lap, but his race was curtailed by turbo failure. Prost took the win for Renault with Arnoux second. The podium was completed by Elio De Angelis in third.
