Max Verstappen, surprise request to F1: “I want Mugello back”

A great champion claiming a legendary track.

Max Verstappen and Mugello have crossed paths almost imperceptibly, given also that the Scarperia circuit has on only one occasion hosted Formula 1. It happened in 2020, when it held the Tuscan Grand Prix useful to complete a calendar mowed down by the Covid'emergency. Yet the Red Bull champion has made it clear without mincing words that he wants to return to the track certainly made moreù famous over the decades by the exploits of MotoGP centaurs.

"Mugello è a track that has a sequence of very fast corners, which cannot be found elsewhere,” Verstappen remarked during a speech for Pirelli’s podcast, 'Box Box Box' -In the Formula 1 world championship there are so many less inspiring circuits, this one on the other hand è fantastic. And I really want it to be part of our annual calendar".

A display of sporting love that moreover might surprise some, given what happened in that 2020 Tuscany Grand Prix. In F1's only precedent at Mugello, victory went to Lewis Hamilton, in another of that year's dominant Sundays (second came Valtteri Bottas in the other Mercedes). Verstappen was, moreover, forced to retire already at the second corner due to a collision, in a Sunday marked by several even spectacular accidents.

On that occasion Mugello became the fourth Italian location to host in history at least one official Formula 1 Grand Prix, after Pescara, Imola and obviously Monza. The simultaneous presence of the latter two tracks in the calendars of these seasons, however, makes it currently unlikely to imagine a return of the Circus on the ups and downs of the Florentine Apennines.