Formula 1's Bold Move into Madrid's Sporting Scene

In a city that already worships its own sporting gods, Formula 1 has chosen to walk straight into the cathedral.

Madrid lives and breathes football. Real Madrid, with their 15 European Cups and 36 La Liga titles, sit at the top of the game’s food chain. The Bernabeu is a weekly pilgrimage site where Jude Bellingham and Kylian Mbappe now trade in miracles. At the end of August, 75,000 Madridistas watched Mbappe glide through the air and volley home a third against Malaga, another ordinary league night turned into a postcard for greatness.

So why would F1 think it can muscle in here?

Because that’s what F1 does. It chases the hardest room in the house and tries to own it.

Madrid looks beyond the Bernabeu

This is a city that already has Atletico snapping at Real’s heels in La Liga and a women’s team playing in the shadow of the Bernabeu, right next to the new circuit. On paper, Madrid doesn’t need anything else to feed its sporting appetite.

Yet on the streets, curiosity hums beneath the white shirts.

“Yes, [the F1 race] is good for Madrid,” says one fan. “There is pride in our sport, Madrid is an open city with open people and open minds. The race can [take] Madrid's [identity] outside of football, and the most we can be seen [by the outside world] is the best. But I'm more than excited… I'm curious - I want to see how it goes.”

Curious. That’s the word that keeps coming back.

“We've always been dreaming of having something [from F1] closer to home,” adds another. “Having it back is great. I've been to Barcelona and the Belgian GP and I think let's see how it goes. Organising tends to be messy in the first year - I don't want to be the guinea pig.

“Let's hope it brings the city more into the spotlight. Madrid has a lot to learn from F1 about how to run a global spectacle; F1 could probably learn the true Spanish way. Barcelona is more international, the drivers and fans coming to Madrid will get more of a taste of Spain.”

The Prado proves the city understands art. The traffic lights chirp like birds. Mexican conifers sway over orderly traffic, framed by grand Palacios-style facades. Yet that elegant, flat grid of the inner city doesn’t lend itself easily to a high-speed, high-safety racing ribbon.

So the race has gone somewhere else.

A unicorn in an expo park

No return to the old Jarama layout. No blast through Salamanca’s polished boutiques and wine bars. Instead, F1 pitches its tent in an expo zone near the airport, on land run by Ifema, the quasi-state organisation that usually hosts trade fairs, not gladiators.

“It started as a joke, it was a fantasy,” admits Luis Garcia Abad, Madring boss and former manager to Fernando Alonso. “An F1 grand prix is like a unicorn - you are trying always to see the unicorn but at the end you realise [sometimes] it's impossible.

“The queue of cities trying to organise an F1 GP is huge. They have to choose right - we signed a contract for 10 years.

“Maybe seven or eight years ago we talked about this race. At some point Ifema called me and said 'what are you thinking [about its viability]?' After one morning [here] I said: 'It's possible.'”

Madrid is a compact capital with serious public transport. Organisers have leaned into that. Car parks have been cut, and fans are being asked to leave their own cars at home.

Just don’t expect Patrick Dempsey, Rafael Nadal or Mbappe to be waiting on the platform at Avenida de America for the pink line. The VIPs will glide into the vast hospitality structures that loom over the paddock, a six-strong village of exclusivity built into this new racing town.

The question is: once everyone actually gets there, what do they find?

Monumental: Madrid’s statement corner

“It's a real experience, not just to be in Madrid but for F1,” says Abad. “Every part of the track has its own personality. Monumental… Turn 12, is huge, amazing.

“We really wanted to have an iconic part of the circuit – more than 30,000 people around one corner.”

Monumental. The name has already started to echo around the paddock.

A 26-degree banked corner, longer than the famous banking at Zandvoort, it carves through what will feel like a temporary town once the lights go out. At its peak, a VIP viewing area sits like a modern fortress, a place grand enough to host the King of Spain and his family. Climb it on foot and you feel the gradient bite. Try sitting there in 44C heat and it turns into a punishment.

“Luis wanted to think of something recognisable in our circuit. Something iconic,” says Carlos Jimenez, operations director for Ifema.

Monumental is the headline act, but the build has been complex everywhere. Organisers have tried to sell sustainability as part of the package: renewable energy powers the race, and existing buildings are pressed into service where possible. Even so, the numbers are serious. Around 65m euros have gone into additional construction, with another 85m euros spent on the track itself.

“There were a lot of challenges,” Jimenez says. “We started building it in the wettest winter in 20 years in Spain. The rain was torrential. We suffered a lot, and had to stabilise parts of clay which behaves badly with wet conditions. It was very challenging. There are three layers of asphalt here. We learnt from one layer to the next.

“In 2022 it seemed like a little bit of a crazy idea. But Madrid has momentum right now; it's a vibrant city, very well known for football.

“Like a ski resort must have entertainment for apres-ski, a circuit must have good after-race entertainment. Madrid will become in top position - the offer of this city is incredible in terms of gastronomy, a spectacular climate, which is very mild in September. And the party in Madrid is unbeatable.”

That’s the pitch: racing as the main act, Madrid as the never-ending after-show.

A tightrope of tarmac

Make no mistake, this is a street circuit. Part public road, part purpose-built, all of it wrapped in concrete and catch fencing. Stand on the racing line and the walls seem to lean in. You feel the squeeze. On first glance, overtaking looks like a dare, not a plan.

“From a driver's point of view it's quite a harsh circuit,” says Abad. “Twenty-two corners, up and down, banking corners - the circuit is adapted to the new [F1] regulations.

“I spoke with Charles Leclerc and he said it was an amazing track, and in the race I believe you will have the opportunity to overtake, but not by free. We're talking about gladiators – the best drivers in the world.”

Plenty of those future gladiators have already tested it in Formula 3.

“It's going to be really edgy,” says Madrid’s own F3 driver Bruno del Pino. “You are always on the limit, the corners are quick and the walls are close. It's like [Saudi GP circuit] Jeddah but with more difficulty.

“With Monumental, you see so much of an angle it never ends. The first time around, you see it going straight up and you feel like you'll fly straight out [of the track].

“It is flat for us because of the downforce so it's not really a corner, but the previous combination of Turns 10 and 11 are high speed and close to the wall - quite a few drivers will kiss the wall.”

Britain’s F3 driver Freddie Slater doesn’t hold back either: “A lap of Madrid is so exhilarating, and the adrenaline is pumping - it's an incredible track to drive. It's one of the best tracks on calendar, if not the best.

“It's got character, it's got bumps, uphill and downhill – it's a bit more old-school.”

Old-school character, new-school spectacle. That’s the balance Madring is trying to strike.

Who needs whom?

Abad is clear about where he thinks the power lies.

“Not just Madrid needing F1, maybe even F1 needing Madrid,” he says. “We're investing money to create an experience inside of a city.

“The future of the [F1] championship is something in this direction – we need to take care of customers and spectators. They are our future.”

That’s the gamble. In a city where Mbappe can silence 75,000 people with a single touch of his boot before sending them into hysteria, F1 is betting that the roar of V6 engines, the tilt of Monumental and the glow of a new street circuit can carve out its own chapter.

In a place already drenched in white shirts and silver trophies, we’re about to find out if there’s room for a different kind of champion.