The Formula One Spanish Grand Prix will move from Catalonia to Madrid from 2026, the sport’s world championship body announced on Tuesday, returning to the capital 45 years later.
The contract for the celebration of the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid stipulates that the race will be held in the Spanish capital until 2035 on a “hybrid circuit” that will use the current site and premises of IFEMA Madrid, the consortium responsible for organizing the fair, congresses and other events.
Madrid’s IFEMA will have to organize the Spanish Grand Prix from 2026 on the basis of a “technical design of the concept of the circuit and its facilities”, which, as they say, still needs to be approved by the International Automobile Federation (FIA). this Tuesday consortium.
The length of the proposed circuit is 5.474 kilometers, including 1.5 kilometers of “public road”, 20 corners and a qualifying lap of about 1.32 minutes, IFEMA Madrid and the company tasked with designing the circuit, Dromo, announced on Tuesday.
IFEMA Madrid operates the exhibition site in the Spanish capital, which currently has more than 200 thousand square meters of indoor pavilions and a further 10 thousand square meters of multi-functional meeting space, as well as 10 thousand parking spaces.
The Grand Prix site can be reached from the center of Madrid by metro, local trains and city buses, and is only a few kilometers from the airport, making the future Grand Prix circuit a unique case of accessibility by public transport during World Cup racing Formula 1. those responsible for IFEMA MAdrid and Formula 1 emphasized on Tuesday.
At stake is a “new hybrid circuit facility” that will allow 110,000 spectators in the first year and 140,000 from the fifth year onwards, without disrupting the daily and normal organization of the city, the IFEMA president said. Madrid, Jose Vicente de los Mosos, at the presentation of the race on Tuesday in the Spanish capital.
The Madrid Grand Prix and its circuit will also combine “spectacle and competition” with sections “specially designed” for spectators and for television coverage, added José Vicente de Los Mosos.
Formula 1 President Stefano Domenicali said Madrid had moved forward with a “very innovative project”, with “diversity” and “complementarity of the values that are currently important to Formula 1”: sports competition, technology and sustainable development.
“This is Formula 1,” he said.
According to IFEMA Madrid, the Grand Prix, which the city will organize, will be the world’s most environmentally friendly championship, emission-neutral and financed entirely from private sources.
According to IFEMA, the Madrid region expects €450 million in annual income associated with the event, as well as the creation of more than 8,200 direct jobs and tens of thousands of new indirect jobs, with a ten-year contract guaranteeing a return on investment. and regional authorities.
The Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid in 2026 will mark the return of Formula One to the city, which already hosted the race from 1970 to 1981.
There are currently 24 races on the Formula 1 World Championship calendar.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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