In Madrid’s Puerta del Sol this week, Formula One fans were not shy in calling on the gods to look kindly on their favoured drivers on a newly built circuit that appears punishingly unforgiving.
Legend has it that rubbing the paws or backside of the bear in the famous El Oso y el Madroño statue at the square’s heart confers good luck. The drivers may well need it. Day one of action at the brand new Madring track began with F2’s Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak careening into the barriers and his car catching fire, leaving the onlooking George Russell shocked before the F1 drivers took to the wheel.
Despite fears the Madring would not be ready in time, it is done and dusted. What sort of racing it will present for the Spanish Grand Prix is now the question. Billed as a street circuit, it is in fact a hybrid of real roads and purpose-built track; narrow, with fast corners and walls looming for much of the lap, there is going to be virtually no margin for error.
This was demonstrated in F2 practice on Friday. Russell, who had previously described the Madring as the “most risky” on the calendar was watching with some members of the media in the Mercedes motorhome when the Art Grand Prix driver’s crash happened. “Oh wow,” he said. “This circuit is mental”.
Inthraphuvasak, who had to leap out in short order after his car burst into flames, had crashed rearward at high speed into the barriers after spinning at turn 19 and Russell observed that the Madring was set to be an even sterner test than Monaco.
“I would put this as a circuit that has less margin, purely because of the speed,” he said. “In Monaco the walls are closer but because you’re going slower – if you make a mistake you’re not into the wall as quickly, and you can recover it sometimes. It’s more lock-up. Here, there’s less margin.”
The issue, explained Russell, was that the fast corners were combined with the angles of the barriers on exit. “You see at this barrier, it’s kind of like coming back on to the track,” he said, indicating where the smoking wreckage of Inthraphuvasak’s car was sitting. “So if you are to go wide and hit the wall, you’re not hitting it at the same angle as the car is going. The car is going towards the wall but the wall is sort of coming in.”
When F3 held a test here recently, there were 19 red flags and three cars suffered broken chassis. “They’re Formula 3 drivers, but it’s a track that kills cars,” was the assessment of Williams’ team principal James Vowles. Russell said he was surprised it was only 19 red flags.
He was not alone in his concern, with Lewis Hamilton echoing his sentiments. “It’s a massively challenging circuit,” he said. “Of all the new tracks I’ve gone to, this one, maybe Saudi, are the two closest in terms of how difficult it was to get on top of the car and find the right lines.”
There was at least cause for optimism after first practice with the entire hour-long session proceeding without a stoppage and the walls only receiving some delicate glances at best. The drivers were up to speed with alacrity and no little composure, with Russell topping the timesheets for Mercedes, ahead of his teammate Kimi Antonelli who leads him by 66 points in the drivers’ championship.
Certainly the sense of spectacle was delivered, as was surely the aim with high speeds on a narrow track flanked by walls, and illustrated in its signature corner La Monumental. A 550 metre-long stretch of 13.5-degree banking, through which the cars are accelerating to great effect, compressing into the track amid an amphitheatre of grandstands before heading over a blind crest and barrelling downwards out of the corner.
There is even a little history here too, with turn eight – “El Bunker” – named for La Mata Espesa, two bunkers built in 1936 by the Republican forces to protect Madrid from attack during the Spanish civil war. Their preservation was a condition of the track being built.
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The circuit lacks the backdrop of Monaco of course, flanked only by the large, grey square boxes so beloved of convention centres situated in industrial estates. Some areas are still somewhat building site-esque too, but the bits that matter are in place and for the fans it is but a 20-minute subway ride from the city. Indeed, it is an achievement that might be considered no little feat given there were objections to it happening at all, relating to costs, the construction and complaints about sound levels exceeding legal levels.
The circuit, which sits around the Institución Ferial de Madrid convention centre area between the centre of the city and the airport, is perhaps exactly what F1 had in mind with its pursuit of “destination races” in cities. This means events that would be entertainment weekends, to rival the Superbowl and draw fans and finance to the host city.
But it also faces a further acid test to come. There remains concern as to quite what sort of racing would be possible come Sunday. The drivers were largely in agreement that it would be a thrilling technical challenge of inch-perfect execution, but equally sceptical about whether overtaking would be possible.
As the four-time world champion Max Verstappen noted, the main braking zones such as turns five, eight and 17 are angled, making passing all but impossible with drivers simply putting their car in the middle of the track.
“You can’t really go for an overtake because you’re braking but you’re steering either right or left, which is the worst thing you can do for creating an overtaking opportunity,” he said.
This will put huge emphasis on qualifying but also raises the spectre of a procession on Sunday, potentially only interrupted by what many still consider will be inevitable red-flag stoppages. A long, hot train of cars circling in unchanging order is certainly not the hoped-for debut at F1’s newest circuit and a threat for which the promoters might too be hoping for some ursine intervention.
