Directa Plus announce the installation of GiPave® at the Imola Circuit ahead of the upcoming Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in May 2024 as part of the Formula 1 World Championship, making it the first circuit to feature green, sustainable and high-tech asphalt utilising graphene and recycled plastics. GiPave® was developed by Iterchimica and resulted from a multi-year research programme conducted in collaboration with G.Eco of the A2A Group, the University of Milano-Bicocca, and Directa Plus. The product uses graphene supplied by Directa Plus alongside hard-to-recycle plastics, such as certain types of toys, fruit crates, and old CD cases that would not normally be recycled.

The asphalt containing GiPave® can itself be entirely recycled, further reducing waste and the need for new materials. The access road paving to the paddocks at Imola, which experiences the higher volume of heavy vehicles and people at race events, has been resurfaced with GiPave®, guaranteeing higher performance in terms of resistance and durability, extending the pavement's life beyond the best technologies currently available on the market and significantly reducing environmental impacts due to lower maintenance requirements. The use of GiPave® also reduces energy and raw materials consumption.

Over the useful life of the pavement, the installation of GiPave® is expected to result in savings including more than 78,000 kg of bitumen, 1.623 million kg of aggregates (equivalent to the weight of 955 cars), about 115 truck trips for transporting materials, over 1,182,125 kWh of energy (equal to the monthly needs of approximately 5,254 families), and 74,000 kg of CO2eq (equivalent to the absorption capacity of about 3,000 adult trees in a year). In addition, 3,700 kg of selected hard recycled plastics have been recovered and repurposed.