Museo Checco Costa

Inside the Enzo and Dino Ferrari circuit stands the museum that carries the name of the man who dreamed the track into being. Renovated in 2019 as a multimedia space and marked by a monumental mural of Ayrton Senna, the Museo Checco Costa preserves the memory of racing at Imola between exhibitions.

Why it matters

The Museo Checco Costa is the circuit's own house of memory, dedicated to the history of racing at Imola rather than to a single marque. It takes its name from Checco Costa, the Imola promoter whose ambition drove the creation of the circuit on the Santerno riverbank, and who later invented the circuit's signature events, including the "Daytona d'Europa" and the 500 km of Imola in the early 1970s. The museum places Imola's racing history within the broader story of the circuit, which has hosted Formula 1, motorcycle world championship and world sportscar events.

The building itself has become part of the story. In spring 2019 the museum reopened after a full renovation as an innovative multimedia exhibition space, and in September 2019 its facade gained a large painted wall by the Brazilian street artist Eduardo Kobra, portraying Ayrton Senna and connected to a similar work on a Sao Paulo skyscraper. A detail in the mural honours Roland Ratzenberger, who lost his life at Imola on 30 April 1994, through a rendering on the helmet's visor.

What to notice

Start outside: the Kobra mural is a work in its own right, and its placement turns the museum facade into a place where racing pilgrimage and public art meet. The mural complements the Senna memorial at the Tamburello curve in the adjacent park.

Inside, the exhibition language is contemporary rather than a classic cabinet of trophies: projected images, multimedia installations and curated displays trace the circuit's past, from the motorcycle era that opened the track in 1953 to the Formula 1 decades and the endurance races that returned Imola to world calendars.

Context and history

The museum belongs to the story of the circuit it sits within. Checco Costa was among the group of Imola enthusiasts who pushed the project of a permanent track in the late 1940s; the circuit was inaugurated in 1953 and grew through the 1960s and 1970s into a venue for world-level car and motorcycle racing. Costa's own contribution included creating the "Daytona d'Europa", Imola's echo of the American 200-mile races, and the 500 km of Imola, then a round of the sportscar world championship. Naming the circuit museum after him acknowledges that promotional, organisational labor behind Imola's racing identity.

The 2019 renovation repositioned the museum from a conventional collection display toward a multimedia interpretation of the circuit's history, reflecting the circuit's broader presentation of its history. The Kobra mural of the same year tied the building into the global iconography of Ayrton Senna, whose 1994 accident at Tamburello remains the pivotal event in Imola's modern history.