A massive missed opportunity - Our verdict on first Madrid F1 race

Madrid’s first Formula 1 race was not a thriller. Here’s our team’s take on it.

A baffling lack of overtaking opportunities 

Josh Suttill

I can't quite understand why, in 2026, F1 circuit layouts are being approved without featuring any obvious overtaking opportunities.

The beauty of a brand-new circuit is the blank sheet of paper it offers, and while in Madrid it's been used to create an interesting track for a single-lap driving experience, and some F2/F3 chaos, it's baffling why more thought wasn't given to the F1 Sunday product. 

You can make the most amazing event in the world - a great fan experience, a cool location, some standout corners, great transport links, etc. - but it means absolutely nothing if the actual circuit isn't good for racing on.

And the worst thing is this was entirely predictable as soon as the layout was revealed, yet nothing was done by any of the stakeholders. 

This keeps happening

Gary Anderson

I’m glad to see that the latest addition to the F1 calendar has managed to keep with tradition - a circuit that it is almost impossible to overtake on. In reality it must be very difficult to achieve this so consistently.

The circuit looks like fun for the drivers and it wasn’t the crashfest that some had predicted. If there is an incident they do really need to find a way to clear the track quicker - Ollie Bearman’s accident in FP3 showed that very clearly. Getting the car away was no problem but repairing the Tecpro barriers was very time consuming.

To see a couple of marshals trying to push one of those barriers into place when they are designed to resist the forces of a 900kg Formula 1 car travelling at speed was comical.

This race also highlights what a lottery the VSC and/or safety car brings to the race result. As the other drivers all said, Lando Norris deserved the win but it was taken out of his grasp when Lance Stroll going off brought out the VSC.

It’s simple to fix so why don’t the powers that be do something about it?

At least it makes the classics look good

Jack Benyon

Madring just gave us the perfect example of why creating a new circuit is so hard. 

In terms of a test for the drivers over a qualifying lap - phwoar. It's excellent for that. It's clearly set out with the proviso of 'how do we make this an excellent circuit to test and extract the maximum out of the drivers', and that's important.

But it also has a number of design features that needn't have impacted the driving challenge and ruined the racing.

It's never easy to make a street circuit wide, but this one is narrow in all the wrong places. Plus, there's not enough 'clean' braking zones where drivers can launch proper moves without the need for combined braking and steering.

And there's really no excuse with a street circuit for making it not good for F1. This track and race was built with that in mind. It wasn't designed to make F3 or touring cars look good.

It's easy for me to sit here, throwing stones while creating my epic Scalextrix track that's much better than this, in my bedroom. I acknowledge that. It's just so frustrating because it feels like this track is a few moved walls and a couple of flatter, more comfortable braking zones away from being absolutely mint.

And another reason this one was tough? Look at the track it was compared to: Macau. That's tough to overtake on outside of its long straights from Fishermen's to R, and R to Lisboa. So this isn't a new problem, although the Madring had more flexibility than the set roads of Macau. A big missed opportunity.

Was it really that bad…? Sadly, yes

Matt Beer

I tend to be charitable towards street circuits. I quite liked the Valencia version. I like anything that makes me think of mid-1990s Vancouver CART races and that track was objectively rubbish for both racing and a driving challenge. I don’t actually think every F1 circuit needs clear opportunities and across a 24-race calendar a few places where everything has to be done on strategy or extreme overtaking creativity are actually good for variety.

There are so many positives about Madrid as an event based on the reports from my colleagues on the ground, and watching onboards and trackside footage there was loads to like about Madring as a spectacle on a fast lap too.

But... this race was just too flat. A car as fast as Norris’s McLaren should have had shots at coming through the field once delayed. Charles Leclerc shouldn’t have been able to stay in front that long with no pitstop. Too many people just seemed to be stuck in traffic they needn’t have been in, and that squashed any hope of intrigue in the race.

I don’t think it would take much to sort this. Maybe even just a much more aggressive tyre compound choice rather than circuit tweaks would do the job.

I like this track, I really wanted to enjoy the race. But I spent most of it pretty bored.