Edd Straw's guide to the classic F1 cars at the Emilia Romagna GP

As this weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix is just a few days after the 75th anniversary of the inaugural world championship race at Silverstone, it was inevitable that F1 would want to put on a show to mark the occasion.

On Friday, 10 minutes after first practice, and Saturday, 15 minutes after the conclusion of F1 qualifying, and Sunday, two-and-a-half hours before the grand prix, the historic cars will hit the track in celebration.

Some of the cars involved are on show between the media centre and the paddock, so having only been able to grab a few furtive glances in that direction yesterday, I was able to spend some time after arriving at the track on Friday morning checking out the machinery on display. It will come as no surprise to anyone in The Race Members’ Club that the most exciting cars to me were the less celebrated ones.  

So here’s my quick tour of the cars – with the only omissions the 2005 Renault R25 that was, sadly, nowhere to be seen and the pair of Tyrrell P34s still shrouded in the car covers.

Heading in from the car park, the first cars you run into do not appear to be part of the main display group. There’s a 2006 Ferrari 248 F1 of unclear provenance (I presume it’s a show car, but don’t know for certain). That’s the first Ferrari after the switch to the 2.4-litre V8 engine formula.

Next to it was a car sometimes confused with the Ferrari at a glance during F1 coverage of the time, the Dallara F192 run by Scuderia Italia. It was a car that much was expected of given the switch to Ferrari V12s, but that delivered patchy returns, with one of its two points finishes coming with sixth place here in the hands of Pierluigi Martini. It’s a car I’ve always liked the look of, with the high front wing that I spectacularly failed to capture properly in my photos, as well as the enormous area of the flap design.

Then it’s over to the display proper, where I’m greeted by the welcome sight of the 1997 Minardi M197, with its distinctive blend of Minardi yellow-white-and-black along with the flashes of blue from sponsor Mild Seven, brought to the team by Ukyo Katayama for his final season. It’s perhaps best known as the car Jarno Trulli made his F1 debut in, and it’s the first of a number of non-points-scoring cars on display.

Another of those follows immediately, the Simtek S951. This car’s most famous moment was in Argentina in ’95 when Jos Verstappen, who joined the team on loan from Benetton along with ’94-spec gearboxes, ran in the points for three glorious laps after qualifying a remarkable 14th. This car is liveried for team-mate Mimmo Schiattarella, who, like Verstappen, was left high and dry after five appearances when the team folded after Monaco.

The 1994 Tyrrell 022 is next, a car that doesn’t often seem to be talked about but that provided the team with its final podium finish courtesy of Mark Blundell in Spain. That’s sat next to the 1989 Minardi M189 and a pair of Arrows – one the start-of-1990 version and stickered up for Bernd Schneider and the other sporting the 1989 look.

The dramatic Jägermeister-livered EuroBrun ER188B completes the first tent, a truly great car given the B-spec used in 1989 never qualified for a grand prix. To be in the presence of so remarkable a car is truly humbling.

Things then take an unexpectedly competitive turn with the appearance of the Ferrari 126C4. This is a little-discussed Ferrari, the reason being it was neither successful enough, nor sufficiently terrible, to loom large in the Scuderia’s history. Chunky, as was the style of the time, the 1984 car’s finest hour was at Zolder, where Michele Alboreto took his first Ferrari win from pole position.

Alongside it sits the Alfa Romeo 182, a fast car on its day – the sixth-quickest on average in 1982 – but one that rarely made the finish. Its best result came at Monaco, where De Cesaris finished third, but it might have been much better than that, but for running out of fuel.

The EuroBrun completist in me is delighted to then see the ER188. That’s the earlier version of the B-spec car we’ve already seen, and one that actually did start a good number of races, albeit never finishing higher than 11th.

After spending a little time with the 1988 Rial ARC1, a one-hit wonder given that it’s the car Andrea de Cesaris famously finished fourth in on the streets of Detroit, I move on to what is set to be one of the star attractions of the weekend – the 1985 Arrows A8.

This is a Thierry Boutsen car of the type – I think potentially the same chassis – that he pushed across the line to finish third in the ’85 San Marino Grand Prix. That later became second when Alain Prost was excluded. I hear there are plans to celebrate that moment later this weekend in the newly-restored car…

The 1982 Arrows A4 follows – a car I had a look at and intended to return to take proper photos of once the cover was fully off, but didn’t – with the RAM March 811 in Rizla colours next to it. The car, in its various forms, was not a classic.

The final car, that’s visible at least, is a Lotus 79 as raced by Mario Andretti to the championship – and now owned by a certain Zak Brown!

I’m then left only with the two covered Tyrrell P34s, with any doubt about the labelling above them allayed by the very distinctive shape of the six-wheeler lurking under the sheets.