Welcome to Madring: First impressions of the massive racetrack in Madrid

Formula 1 is back in Madrid for the first time since 1981, when the Spanish Grand Prix was held at Jarama, 30 km north of the stylish capital.

After five editions of the Spanish World Championship round in Jerez de la Frontera (Andalusia), the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona hosted the traditional Grand Prix from 1991 to 2024. Now it’s back in Madrid.

This raises a simple question for this reporter: how on earth do I actually get to the circuit?

My hotel is in the airport area. I step out of the air-conditioned lobby into the 36-degree heat; it’s as if I were opening the door of a blazing hot oven at home. I reckon I could easily fry an egg on the ground, but I decide against giving it a go.

An Uber driver takes me to Terminal 4. He’s keen to know what I’m up to in his city. I reply that I’ve come for the Formula 1 race. Now the driver is wide awake. He beams: ‘We showed the Catalans what we’re made of. Now WE’VE got the Grand Prix.’

Topic of the week

2027 MotoGP grid: Almost a quarter of the riders are new – implications for SBK

The 2027 MotoGP grid will feature five new regular riders, with at least three of those dropped set to move to the World Superbike Championship. The ones to suffer as a result are Alvaro Bautista and Danilo Petrucci.

Ivo Schützbach

Read more

TV program

Live

Madrid: Das Rennen Re-Live

FIA Formula One World Championship

13.09.2026 - 17:15

The rivalry between Barcelona and Madrid is legendary; it’s always nice when you can get one over on the other side.

Then the driver wants to know (watch out, trick question!): “Do you prefer Real Madrid or FC Barcelona?” I try a joke: “Betis Sevilla.” He looks at me with mild pity.

At Terminal 4 of Madrid Airport, I’m looking for a ticket machine to get a multi-journey ticket for the underground, as there’s a station on the pink line right next to the race track. I’d just taken my first step at the ticket machine (switching from Spanish to English) when an American strikes up a conversation: “Can you help me? I don’t know how to use these things.”

“Well, I don’t know either, but of course I’ll help you. Where do you need to go?” – “To the railway station.” – “Yes, of course,” I say, “but which one? Madrid has a South and a North station.” – “I don’t know.”

We faffed about together in the ticket machine’s menu, which was only marginally harder than beating a chess grandmaster in seven moves.

The American croaks: “Oh, come on, I’ll just jump on the Metro, get off somewhere and hope for the best.”

Before I can point out that the Metro network consists of 302 stations and that this is hardly a sensible approach, he’s vanished into the crowd.

Mit der Madrilener U-Bahn zur Rennstrecke

Foto: SPEEDWEEK.com

So, back to the ticket machine: I actually manage to buy a multi-journey ticket, then I watch the seasoned passengers as they unlock the gate to get onto the platforms.

Four minutes later, I’m sitting in a carriage that’s spotless. And such peace and quiet! Nothing like the Metro in Mexico City with its inevitable market hawkers. You don’t know them? How lucky you are!

The skills of Mexico City’s street vendors evoke a wild mix of admiration and vicarious embarrassment. The way they jostle their way into the carriages with their plastic bags full of goods and then launch into that unmistakable, sing-song sales pitch: ‘Goodsss, ballpoint penneeeeeees, sweeeeeets. Oooooone for teeeeeeen pesos! Twoooooo for fifteeeeeeen pesos! Grab them quickkkkkkkkk!’

One day there was a special offer: sanitary towels (no joke). That reminds me – I was sitting on the plane to Madrid that morning, in the emergency exit row, the only passenger there. The flight attendant said he had to ask a few routine questions. ‘Go ahead,’ I replied.

He rattled off: “Do you feel confident you could open the emergency door in the event of an evacuation? Are you prepared to assist the crew? Are you pregnant?”

The last question came as a bit of a surprise for a 64-year-old man, but I answered truthfully: “Not that I know of.”

Back to Mexico, then – sanitary towels. It wasn’t easy to gauge the saleswoman’s age. But judging by her wrinkles, she must have been there on 16 September 1810 when the priest Miguel Hidalgo called for armed resistance against Spanish colonial rule, which ultimately led to Mexico’s independence.

Hardly anyone usually buys anything on the Mexican underground. Most people memorise their mobile phone screens to avoid the sales pitches. And definitely no eye contact! Otherwise, a vendor will be right in front of you in a flash, thinking you’re interested. Then there’s no escape. You’ll end up stuck with two ballpoint pens and three packets of chewing gum.

Back to Madrid. I get off again at the third stop on the pink line – a journey of less than ten minutes – and arrive at the Feria de Madrid, the exhibition centre. This is where the new, 5.474 km-long Grand Prix circuit is located.

Aussteigen bei der Metro-Station Feria de Madrid

Foto: SPEEDWEEK.com

The huge entrance gate (which could easily have come straight out of a Lord of the Rings film) is locked. I almost expect Gandalf to step out and bark at me: “You – shall – NOT – pass!” And I’m not even a Balrog.

A security guard is standing at the gate. I apologise for not speaking Spanish very well. He apologises for not speaking English very well. I resist the urge to joke and ask if he might speak Catalan.

So I ask if he knows the best way to the paddock and/or the media centre.

If you’ve ever wondered what a question mark shaped like a face looks like, there’s your answer. He asks in return: “Paddock what is?” I stammer in Spanish that it’s the place where the Formula 1 professionals do their jobs. He shakes his head. This isn’t going to work.

Another attempt: I point out a footbridge on my Madring map, which I’ll probably have to cross to get to the paddock. His face lights up and he points to the right. I know, though, that the right way is the other way to the right. I thank him politely and make a beeline for the exit, whilst a tourist from China draws the man into another conversation.

Der neue Madring

Foto: Madring

So, off to the other right: I trudge along a street, the sun beating down, to my left, the massive halls of the IFEMA exhibition centre (Institución Ferial de Madrid) tower up; it opened in 1991 – ironically, the very year Formula 1 made its debut outside Barcelona.

After passing many locked gates, I finally spot a gap. Another member of staff is sitting under a parasol, apparently engrossed in his mobile. I don’t ask about the media centre any more, but simply about the bridge over the race track. He points his bony right hand towards the north-east and waves me on with his left – because a delivery van loaded with party chairs is just pulling up.

Searched, found, across the bridge to Hall 12. The IFEMA halls remind me of film studio complexes in Hollywood; each of these halls is about that vast. Here at IFEMA there are 13 of these halls, three of which have not a single internal support; the largest of them could accommodate three football pitches.

The site is a mad bustle of Spanish IFEMA staff and Formula 1 personnel, interspersed with a few VIP tour groups who are in exactly the same boat as me – we’re all searching.

In between, a quick glance down the pit lane; at the far end, the Spanish national flag flutters in a wind that seems to be blowing straight from North Africa.

Blick in die Boxengasse

Foto: SPEEDWEEK.com

I know the media centre is in Hall 5 – surely I must be able to find it! So past Hall 4, and suddenly a lovely path lined with palm trees and portraits of the drivers – it can’t be far now.

Auf dem Weg Richtung Pressezentrum

Foto: SPEEDWEEK.com

And there it is, Hall 5, and it’s – locked. I’m not giving up that easily. I find a side entrance and step into the hall. That strange feeling again, of being in a film studio hangar. In the distance, an eggshell-white wall glows, with a bright red carpet behind it; above me, the cobweb-like structure of the hall’s roof; everything sounds strangely hollow. Somewhere, a Spaniard is shouting, as if he’d just smacked his thumb hard with a hammer.

Der Medienbereich verliert sich in Halle 5

Foto: SPEEDWEEK.com

I’ve certainly experienced my fair share of media centres that have been rather peculiar: a ballroom in Las Vegas, a windowless dungeon in Phoenix, a room overlooking a marshland in South Korea, the building ruin in India, the corrugated iron shack at Zandvoort from the 1980s, the un-air-conditioned audacity of Estoril, where the proximity to the track meant that at the start the photographers were standing on my table, yet another ballroom (in Baku), the old press room at Suzuka, steeply tiered and furnished with school desks, as if the professor were about to step forward and give a lecture.

Die Arbeitsplätze der Formel-1-Journalisten

Foto: SPEEDWEEK.com

But I’ve never seen anything quite like this, here in Madrid: the media room, as large as it undoubtedly is, almost disappears into Hall 5; in a few days’ time, Formula 1 reporters will be reporting from here on the sort of circuit the Madrileños have built.

We’ll look at the finer details of the circuit in another feature.