The new Formula 1 circuit which will host next year’s Spanish Grand Prix will be built in a collaboration between two companies.
Spanish infrastructure firm Acciona announced it had formed a consortium with Eiffage Construction to construct the circuit and signed a deal with the event promoter, Ifema Madrid. The contract was put out to tender for €111 million (£95m), and awarded for €83.2m.Formula 1 announced last year the Spanish Grand Prix will be held on a new semi-permanent track in Madrid. The 5.47-kilometre course will be called the Madring.
Both companies involved in the track’s construction have prior experience of working on circuits which meet the FIA’s grade one certification required to host Formula 1 events. Eiffage handled the resurfacing of the Jerez grand prix circuit, which F1 last visited for testing 10 years ago, while Acciona developed the infrastructure at Motorland Aragon, which has never held a round of the world championship.
As only around a quarter of the Madring will be formed by public roads, several kilometres of purpose-built track will be laid, including the signature banked corner named Valdebebas. The project’s cost will include the creation and removal of temporary structures for the race and restoring public roads after the event.
The companies intend to reduce the environmental impact of the construction works by using hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) to power its machinery. It also stated 60% of the earth displaced by the project will be reused in the construction and the rest retained for use in other projects.
Construction is due to begin this month and be completed by May next year. The date of the inaugural event, which will also include Formula 2 and Formula 3 support races, has not yet been announced. F1 announced last year it had agreed a 10-year deal with the promoters.
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David
16th April 2025, 11:58
Racing around an industrial estate. The pinnacle of motorsport.
Ferdi
16th April 2025, 12:25
I agree. F1 should have 2 street circuits per season as maximum. And there should be an incredibly good reason for these two exceptions as well. We are talking about F1 here, not soap box racing or whatever kids play. It is blantantly clear the driving does not improve on these circuits. There is only one reason which is to be closer to the mass of consumers who need to spend to make the Liberty shareholders even richer. That is the sole reason. Disgusting.
anon
16th April 2025, 13:06
Ferdi, by your definition, if you want to insist that it can’t have been a proper F1 season if there were more than two street circuits on the calendar, then there will be plenty of seasons that should be stripped out as being “soap box racing or whatever kids play” for featuring too many street circuits.
Should figures such as Fangio or Hawthorn have their records dismissed as “kids play” because they competed in seasons that had calendars with more street races than that (indeed, there were times when Fangio raced where permanent circuits made up a minority of the calendar)? Should Clark’s achievements be scrapped because he won in seasons with too many street circuits for you? Sneer at the achievements of Piquet, Keke Rosberg, Prost, Lauda or Senna because they won with seasons that had too many street circuits for you to tolerate?
James
16th April 2025, 17:15
I think the cars back then were so much smaller and slower the street circuits worked better. Maybe that was his point, not belittling those amazing drivers’ achievements
Coventry Climax
17th April 2025, 18:31
That’s NOT what he says, it’s what YOU read.
Leksa (@leksa)
16th April 2025, 18:33
Fully agree. I would only keep Monaco and maybe Baku (+ Albert Park and Montreal which are park circuits). The rest of the circuits should be as far as possible from shops, nightclubs and TikTok influencers. That is, in the countryside. I want Magny-Cours back.
BasCB (@bascb)
16th April 2025, 12:38
Yeah, seeing that track makes me really feeling even more meh about this one. Racing around a few boxes and then throwing in the next version of Turkey’s great corner/loop (that’s the 3-4? attempt of recreating it now?). I guess at least it will be close enough to a big city to attract crowds?
Rooie Piet (@axel3304)
16th April 2025, 11:59
Somewhere I’m still hoping that this becomes the new Hanoi, running into trouble before dissapearing into oblivion without disturbing the F1 calendar.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
16th April 2025, 12:30
The weird thing about Vietnam is me and many many others did more laps in the game than anyone ever did in real life. Other than fictional tracks, it’s got be setting a few firsts.
It wasn’t fun to drive in the game. I don’t think we missed much.
Jere (@jerejj)
16th April 2025, 12:43
@bernasaurus I found the Hanoi street circuit mostly a nice circuit to drive, but the unnecessarily many tight turns towards the lap’s end & around further into S1 hampered the overall flow quite a lot.
Doh
17th April 2025, 14:04
How is it beneficial for the country anyway to spend 60 million to make the track then another 300 million over 10 years? Do they even make a profit on events or have a worthwhile economic benefit?
Fair play to Bernie getting countries to pay F1 to host a race rather than it being the other way around and outsourcing the race promotion too.
I wonder if a new series could pull of the same if they had cars as fast as F1
Coventry Climax
16th April 2025, 11:59
Keep F1 out of cities.
If you’re really a fan, you have no issues whatsoever travelling to a permanent circuit, where all the facilities are already there. In Spain, there already are multiple options, and for the entire Iberian peninsula, the Algarve circuit is another possibility.
If our not a fan, which I think over half the population of the Madrid area qualifies as, then there’s disruption of normal city life, both in the preparation and dismantling period as well as during the race weekend itself.
It’s a waste also, by means of not using the facilities that are already there, and specifically made for the purpose.
As far as I’m concerned, this is downright madness.
Coventry Climax
16th April 2025, 12:05
Oh, and like that ridiculous energy wasting Vegas Dome, you can be pretty sure the environmental impact is just brilliantly not put in the F1 books and calculated where it belongs, but in the books of those two companies.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
16th April 2025, 16:51
You miss the point. This is purely political. So having the F1 cars AT Madrid, not nearby, is a plus. Visibility is the name of the game. I bet every single politician would rather have the GPs at street tracks. Hence why Formula E stays there, and why F1 is embrasing that trend too.
If they are going to put money on it, better capitalize on that.
On a side note, I suppose building an entire track (or getting it up to F1 standards) costs just as much. And then you’ve got to think about the logistics of allowing all that people in and out the track. Catalunya struggles every year for example.
Coventry Climax
17th April 2025, 11:27
What you call ‘is a plus’ (without any explanation as to why you feel that is) and ‘better capitalize on that’ (there’s more and better things to life than just money, e.g. health, to name one), are sheer abominations in my eyes (= opinion).
And then they’re not true:
I’m sure there’s politicians that are not in favor of having F1 in their cities. You’d lose that bet for sure.
Formula E visits cities because of their agenda to promote electric. It’s doable because their track requirements are not as extensive as F1’s. They’re near noiseless, slower, run narrower tracks and do not attract comparable amounts of spectators, thus creating a much lesser burden regarding construction, parking and accommodational capacities and disruption of city life in general.
I don’t care enough about FE to have the figures, but sincerely doubt it’s hugely financially advantageous to the population and enterprises of the cities they run in. Sure, the councils are probably paid enough to endorse it, but that’s not the same. You could even wonder who that money eventually ends up with.
As far as I know though, FE is increasingly relegated to industrial outskirts: Hardly an example to follow.
What does F1 advertise as being their weekend attendance, on average? Yes I know, they have a most peculiar way of counting and a distinct preference for round, (too) big numbers. But even if you take that into account, the visitor numbers mean that the vast majority comes from ‘out of town’. That may bring income for hotels and restaurants, but hardly does anything for the other sectors or its actual population, except bring inconvenience and burdens with respect to parking, transport, police surveillance etc.
You ever actively bothered to try and find some critical reports about Vegas? Tried to be informed by and look at things from BOTH sides? I’d recommend that.
It’s apalling how the people and companies, including the hotel, restaurant and casino owners, really feel about the F1 weekend there. On average, their revenues DROP during the F1 weekend, and it is NOT recovered during the rest of the year. Sure, F1 itself will tell you different, but then they have their own, special way of bookkeeping. Hence my reference to that dome, e.g. Keep in mind it’s the only circuit where the promotor is FOM themselves. And it’s one too many, in my view.
I don’t care what F1 ’embraces’ (with with a ‘c’ by the way), and especially not when I see how they favor tracks in the middle of nowhere deserts of countries with zero motorsports history and very debatable human rights situations, over great, existing tracks like e.g. Spa or the Nürburgring. Why don’t they go to the big cities there?
So apparently, that’s where your ‘better capitalise on that’ is now taking us.
F1 may ‘capitalise’ -nothing new-, but the city people don’t and certainly not the majority of them.
But then even if they would, it’s common decency to respect others.
My opinion: F1 does not belong in cities.
I did not miss ‘the point’ at all.
But you fail to recognise an opinion for an opinion, and put those that do not fit your picture away as coming from someone who’s missing the point. Cheap and very Trump.
Ferdi
16th April 2025, 12:18
Every step Liberty makes takes us further away from this once great sport. They truly are the embodiment of cheap entertainment and greed. They wont stop until they have taken all that was beautiful out of this sport. Cheap entertainment for masses is all that will remain. The future is not looking bright.
MurasamaRA300 (@murasamara300)
16th April 2025, 15:23
I keep remembering the words “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).
Formula One is a prime example of this. Where is the soul?
———————————–
Cue comments along the lines of, for example:
“So what are you doing in this comments field Murasama, please close the door on your way out.“.
And if I’m totally honest with myself, that would be fair enough, I suppose. Might as well say it myself to spare others the trouble.
The world seems to have changed or morphed beyond recognition lately. I’m not really sure what happened, but many things (including F1) no longer seem as relevant as they once did.
SteveP
16th April 2025, 18:30
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, even the maga-louts, but then those characters need to accept we too can have opinions – so, you’re definitely not the problem.
MurasamaRA300 (@murasamara300)
16th April 2025, 19:44
I do not like double standards of any kind.
That goes for “right-wing maga intolerants” as well as “left-wing socialist intolerants”.
The crucial word there is “intolerants“, not “left-wing” or “right-wing”.
Politics itself is the art of keeping half the population permanently miserable.
This trick of inciting/provoking one part of the population against another part of the population is done systematically by all political “elites” – to immense success (for them, never for you or me…).
Every few years these political people can simply hand over the baton to “the other team” and take a little rest for a few years “in opposition”.
and the inciting/provoking continues, and 100% of all political people will always be guaranteed payment forever – taken out of your pocket through “taxes”.
On an even sadder note, things like F1 has become much more political in later years. When things go political, the soul goes straight out the window.
anon
17th April 2025, 8:45
@murasamara300 and yet much of your rhetoric sounds exactly like the sort of thing that would be said to promote the very dissension that you so claim to be against.
MurasamaRA300 (@murasamara300)
17th April 2025, 12:01
@anon:
It does? Well, that’s a pity.
I’m not getting my points across very well then.
I’m sort of trying to see past the politics that seem to be absolutely everywhere now. It sure ain’t easy!
I do realise that the world has changed and there’s zilch I can co about it.
Sometimes I get sarcastic. Particularly when I see grandstanding climate lectures from multi-millionaires while regular Joe’s are scraping by on pennies. That’s a pet peeve to which I freely admit.
Jere (@jerejj)
16th April 2025, 12:41
The Madrid GP will probably occur in September, which would most likely mean a triple-header formation with Zandvoort & Monza, especially given the estimation completion timeline, but the track configuration itself looks decently flowing.
The mixture of permanent portions combined with regular public roads is interesting, & seemingly more towards the former, so less of a semi-permanent temporary circuit than Jeddah Corniche Circuit & Miami Autodrome, but still more towards them than a full-blown street circuit.
MacLeod (@macleod)
16th April 2025, 13:35
That looks like a Monaco almost no straights if that is all ground level it will be very bad indeed.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
16th April 2025, 13:51
Need to consider it’s replacing barcelona however, which has been a processional race for quite some time, especially since it didn’t rain in a long time.
kokos
16th April 2025, 16:02
it reminds me Formula-e type of a venue: around some hangars/warehouses, on some parking lot or industrial zone. It may be fun to drive but will it be fun to watch? not for spectacular views or wonderful landscape around the track, as it looks from pic in this article.
The Dolphins
16th April 2025, 16:29
This track gives Sochi vibes.
Roger Ayles (@roger-ayles)
16th April 2025, 23:24
I used to enjoy street circuits as they used to be something completely different and offer a whole new set of challenges for both the car & driver.
But now it feels like street circuits are the go to venues for new additions to the calender and there are enough of them now that they don’t feel as special anymore and also the fact that they all (Well apart from Monaco) share fairly similar characteristics in terms of layouts.
But the other downer now is that street circuits don’t even offer the sort of unique challenges that they once did as they are mostly just as wide as the permanent venues with the same kerbs and the same tra surfaces that are just as clean and just as smooth.
Street circuits used to be narrow with no room for error, they used to have a different variety of kerbing designs and they used to be dusty, bumpy and feature changes in surface which all made each venue offer a very different set of challenges not just compared to the permanent venues but also compared to each other.
Pablo
17th April 2025, 8:52
Valencia MKII…. only less attractive.
Laz
17th April 2025, 9:12
Is there even a single place on this track where overtaking might be possible? It looks awful. Really wish they would stop going to street tracks. They do not offer good racing. They are not purpose built for F1 cars, they make do with what limited room they have. F1 cars are too big for them now anyway.
isthatglock21
17th April 2025, 13:11
Lol £95m? Even with my limited knowledge of Spanish construction projects, you just know you gotta double it to meet the timeline & make adjustments for countless corrupt backhanders & shady deals. We should keep Barcelona, the changes they made were decent, it’s a legacy track, loads of fans & still fairly reasonable re cost for fans.