Method 1 will welcome a brand new host of the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend because the Madring will make its debut on the outskirts of Spain’s capital metropolis.
It’s changing earlier Spanish GP holder Barcelona, which remains to be on the F1 calendar however beneath a brand new identify having hosted its 2026 race in June – received by Lewis Hamilton.
This weekend would be the first time Madrid has appeared on the F1 calendar for the reason that old-school Jarama circuit in 1981 and is one in every of many issues that can be a speaking level through the grand prix.
So listed here are 5 issues to look out for.
It’ll be alright on the evening (possibly)
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
Photograph by: Madring
With any new occasion there’s a specific amount of bedding in. Take the primary iteration of the Miami Grand Prix, the place the sub-optimal location of the catering amenities led to difficulties supplying scorching meals to the hospitality enclosures.
Oh no! Will no person consider the poor VIPs and their chilly canapes?
Thoughts you, Monza has been internet hosting grands prix since lengthy earlier than the world championship started and easily getting out and in of the observe stays an essay in pure chaos. Ditto Abu Dhabi, the place guests typically have trigger to ponder why the preparations on the gate stay a fustercluck after they’ve been internet hosting F1 yearly since 2009.
To that finish it was no shock when our observe staff arrived on the Madring (nicely, possibly not Fil, nonetheless trapped on a practice someplace between Barcelona and Madrid) and couldn’t discover any option to get from the media centre to the paddock. Additionally noticed wandering round trying misplaced: Pedro de la Rosa and Kimi Antonelli.
Logistical disarray will add to the challenges going through the groups establishing their tools, on condition that that is the second race of a double-header. Assuming the drivers can discover their option to their garages, and that there are automobiles there to drive, who is aware of what method of malarkey might ensue as soon as the automobiles hit the observe?
Not too long ago laid asphalt has a behavior of misbehaving, though apparently the floor has been pressure-washed to eliminate the oily residues. And let’s hope all of the signage nonetheless works, after an entire bunch of wiring was stolen lately…
– Stuart Codling
Kimi Antonelli, the champion in-waiting
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photograph by: Simon Galloway / LAT Photographs by way of Getty Photographs
Final weekend’s Italian Grand Prix was maybe the primary time George Russell publicly acknowledged that his title hopes had been virtually over. The Mercedes driver completed runner-up to team-mate Kimi Antonelli at Monza, which means the 20-year-old Italian has now established a 66-point lead with 10 rounds remaining.
“Yeah, Kimi’s undoubtedly in charge of it and he is deserving to be in charge of it,” he stated. “I am not even occupied with a battle or a comeback or something. I am simply centered on taking it race by race and attempting to maximise each single weekend.
“He is performing extremely nicely. It is going to be exceptionally difficult to beat that hole, so I am simply form of accepting that’s what it’s. I am simply going to get pleasure from it from right here on in and attempt to win as many races as doable.”
That is actually not how Russell thought 2026 would pan out, coming into the season because the heavy title favorite and supporting that tag by successful the Melbourne opener from pole. Luck subsequently didn’t go his manner within the following rounds, such because the premature security automobile in Japan, however Monza was demonstrative of how Antonelli is the deserving chief – contemplating he began the race in nineteenth!
If Russell can’t even take benefit on a weekend like that, the place his sophomore team-mate was carrying a grid penalty, then it’s exhausting to see the place he’ll maintain the higher hand and carry out a comeback.
So Madrid this weekend is simply one other race on the trail to Antonelli’s crowning second – and don’t guess in opposition to him taking an eighth victory of 2026!
– Ed Hardy
The one-off Tsunoda return that has changed into three races
Yuki Tsunoda, Racing Bulls
Photograph by: Simon Galloway / LAT Photographs by way of Getty Photographs
It wasn’t way back that a number of F1 media retailers – this one included – had been labelling Yuki Tsunoda’s return at Zandvoort as a ‘one-off look’. But, right here we’re, with the Japanese driver set to make his third grand prix begin of the 12 months for Racing Bulls, likewise for Liam Lawson at Purple Bull.
This comes as the results of standard Purple Bull driver Isack Hadjar nonetheless battling with a wrist harm that he sustained throughout a health club session over the August summer time break, first lacking Zandvoort after which Monza, with Madrid set to make it three in a row.
Whereas it clearly comes as a disappointment for Hadjar, it has offered a golden alternative for each Lawson and Tsunoda with neither of their plans for 2026 but confirmed. For Lawson, he ought to in all probability be probably the most relaxed over his future because the Kiwi has actually impressed for Racing Bulls this 12 months by scoring constant factors finishes and performing valiantly up to now two rounds for Purple Bull.
Tsunoda, in the meantime, has been with out a full-time seat in 2026 and is known to be in talks for an IndyCar drive subsequent 12 months. So a spot on the F1 grid in 2027 is unlikely, however he hasn’t given up all hope and Madrid is simply one other likelihood for him to indicate what he can truly do after his torrid Purple Bull stint final 12 months broken a lot of his fame.
The Japanese driver carried out solidly in Zandvoort earlier than scoring some extent in Monza, and contemplating Racing Bulls is main the midfield, one shouldn’t be too shocked if he had been to say one other high 10 consequence.
– Ed Hardy
Purple flag chaos?
A marshal waves the purple flag
Photograph by: Hector Vivas / Getty Photographs
When F3 headed to the Madring for an official check final month, some staff house owners and sponsors can have possible scratched their heads. The top consequence was 19 purple flags, together with quite a lot of vital crashes that drove up the accident payments.
As is at all times the case with any new circuit, the grip ranges can be extraordinarily low in 12 months one. However Madring’s hybrid of public roads and bespoke high-speed sections with little runoff space might nicely result in a chaotic weekend.
Quite a lot of consideration will go to the Madring’s headline function, the steeply banked La Monumental curve and is much more advanced than it first appears, with its various radii and elevation modifications.
However the corners proper earlier than and after the spectacular Flip 12 are additionally extraordinarily tough, with loads of exit partitions that come again into the observe fairly than fade away. With so many unknowns, there’s each likelihood the primary working of the occasion might turn out to be a messy one.
“I feel undoubtedly with the way in which they’ve put the limitations and the design of the observe, it may be one of many largest challenges in Method 1 lately,” stated Carlos Sainz, who’s an envoy for the occasion.
“The observe jogs my memory a number of Jeddah, jogs my memory a number of Baku, even jogs my memory a little bit of Macau in some methods. So having that in an F1 automobile with 1,000 horsepower goes to be fairly an attention-grabbing problem.”
Sainz was conscious of what occurred within the F3 check and was beneath no phantasm that the Madring could possibly be a recipe for chaos, each in qualifying with drivers looking for the restrict millimetres away from the partitions, and the omnipresent menace of impeding incidents.
“I have been trying on the observe and listening to of what occurred within the F3 check,” he added. “I feel we’re all anticipating security automobiles and purple flags and yellow flags in qualifying and issues like this.
“It has been a bent of Method 1 to go to those sorts of tracks like Jeddah and Baku lately, which might be nearer to the town, Miami, however they’ve extra partitions and we have not had any points with it.”
– Filip Cleeren
Ferrari is beneath the highlight after Hamilton’s “there are not any guidelines” remarks
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photograph by: Andy Hone/ LAT Photographs by way of Getty Photographs
Eyes can be on Hamilton and Charles Leclerc in Madrid this weekend following the conflict between the 2 Ferrari drivers at Monza, and on whether or not the staff will reply to the Briton’s requires clearer staff guidelines.
Leclerc and Hamilton went facet by facet into the opening chicane firstly on Sunday. The seven-time world champion went for the within at Flip 1, however the Monegasque held on and took the within line for Flip 2, leaving no room for his team-mate, who was pressured into the gravel and consequently misplaced a number of positions, inflicting anger.
Hamilton felt he ought to have been given precedence, as he’s nearer to the Mercedes duo than Leclerc within the drivers’ championship, and took a swipe at Ferrari by recalling how issues labored throughout his time at Mercedes, claiming that “there are not any guidelines” at Maranello.
Whereas F1 heads into unknown territory on the Madring, Ferrari already has some data of the venue from a filming day the staff performed there in July. Whether or not that may give it a bonus stays to be seen, however one factor is definite: Ferrari should arrive on the Spanish Grand Prix with a clearer understanding between its two drivers.
– Federico Faturos
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