Formula 1 has a long and illustrious history of racing on city-based circuits; the jewel in its crown is the Monaco Grand Prix which has been running since 1929 and has remained the epicentre of the glamourous side of the sport. Monza, too, is not in the middle of nowhere but in the city’s royal park less than 20 minutes by train from Milan.
Since the championship first started running under the Formula 1 moniker in 1950, the calendar has featured tens of different street and city-based circuits ranging from Portugal’s Pescara to Las Vegas’s Caesar’s Palace, from Azerbaijan’s Baku to the infamous AVUS in Berlin.
While city-based circuits have remained a key part of Formula 1’s circuit lexicon and have given it some of its greatest races such as Jenson Button’s win in Montreal in 2011. In recent years the sport has tried to increase the proportion of these circuits on its calendar. In large part, this has been in reaction to Netflix’s successful Drive to Survive series that has seen the sport’s fanbase explode.
As a result, the sport has added more city-based circuits to bring the sport to the people and save them from trekking into the middle of a forest or desert. The latest city to become host to the world’s most popular racing series is Madrid, and I’m not sure it’s a good idea.
From 2026, the Spanish capital will host a Grand Prix around the IFEMA fairgrounds in the northeast of the city. It will be the second race in Spain alongside Barcelona. The difference between the two is the Barcelona venue is a purpose-built racing circuit and not based on public roads.
So far the sport has not specified how the two-race solution will work or whether Barcelona, for years a testing venue for Formula 1, will fall off the calendar. If it does, I believe F1 will have made the wrong decision.
Yes, Barcelona has not provided the most exciting races, but so often their outcome has not been easy to predict. What’s more, with its long fast corners, it has been one of the circuits where fans can get a true sense of what a Formula 1 car can do.
And I’m not sure this Madrid circuit will do that, and neither am I certain Formula 1 should be ploughing ahead with so many city-based circuits on their calendar, an issue that appears symptomatic of a sport choosing profits over people. The issue, as always, is not black and white – both arguments are nuanced.
On one hand, city-based circuits are both in Formula 1’s DNA and in Spain’s history with F1. Formula 1 used to race around the Montjuic circuit in Barcelona. This now-departed venue was where Lella Lombardi became the first and so far only female and LGBTQ F1 driver to score points.
What’s more, street and city-based circuits can provide great racing; Baku and Las Vegas are two tracks that have given fans great racing since joining the calendar. However, racing in urban areas comes with restrictions and gives circuit designers far less flexibility to design a circuit that not only looks good but provides decent racing.
One of the reasons why the likes of Spa, Silverstone, Monza, and the Circuit of the Americas provide great racing is because the track designers had a large space to play with to build circuits that encouraged overtaking.
Finally, there is the people over profit argument. It is crucial for Formula 1 to remain financially healthy to survive, and adding new races helps boost overall revenue and profit, but at what personal cost?
Behind every race, there are 10 teams of drivers all of whom are supported by hundreds of personnel who each year spend more and more time away from their families because the sport insists on adding more street circuits.
Even the drivers are tired. Motorsport.com reported that several drivers were unwell at the final round in Abu Dhabi because of the time differences between the final few races pushing them to their limit.
The problem for F1 will come when they have to inevitably shrink the calendar. With so many city-based circuits, could the likes of Spa, Silverstone, and Shanghai come under threat because of their location? Although the Madrid Grand Prix may bolster F1’s bank balance it could come at the expense of circuits that built F1’s reputation and provide better racing.
All being said and done, I and other sceptics could be wrong, but unless the track provides a spectacle to match the location, that 10-year contract shouldn’t be set in stone.
