Madrid will host a Formula One street race from 2026 onwards, it was announced on Tuesday, leaving a question-mark over the future of the existing Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.
F1’s last Madrid event was in 1981 at a purpose-built track at Jarama, but its new venue will be a 5.47km circuit stretching between the city’s Ifema and Valdebas districts.
F1 confirmed it has signed a 10-year deal with the Madrid event, which will feature a purpose-built paddock facility in the heart of the city.
Assuming other races stay in place, it will become the ninth street race on the calendar alongside the likes of Monaco and the new Las Vegas Grand Prix.
F1 is understood to be in ongoing discussions with Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya about its own deal, which runs until 2025, and has made clear the race could continue alongside Madrid.
F1 has accommodated two races in Spain before — two time world champion Fernando Alonso’s huge popularity helped create the short-lived European Grand Prix in Valencia between 2008 and 2012.
Alonso and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, born and raised in Madrid, are two of the sport’s most popular drivers.
Alonso won world championships in 2005 and 2006 and is credited with a boom in popularity for F1 in Spain, which traditionally has favoured motorbike racing.
The trend of street circuit races in F1 is growing — new races in Saudi Arabia, Miami and Las Vegas are all in a street layout, which feature limited run off areas and walls around the edge of the track, although the Qatar Grand Prix joined the schedule with a conventional circuit in 2021.
The championship is still exploring options for a race in Africa, the only continent which is not represented on the schedule.
F1’s schedule is already set for a record 24 events in 2024, the most which can be held under the Concorde Agreement, although that maximum can be raised when the commercial deal is renegotiated with the teams in 2026.
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