Sainz says Madrid's Madring is faster than it looks

Carlos Sainz completed the first recorded lap of Madrid’s new 5.4km, 22-turn Madring and came away convinced Formula 1’s newest circuit is far quicker and more raceable than it appears on paper, with the blind, banked La Monumental immediately standing out as its defining corner.

Driving a 450bhp Ford Mustang GT on the still-unfinished layout near IFEMA and Barajas airport, the Williams driver and circuit ambassador said the track exceeded his expectations from the moment he sampled it for real. “Honestly, it’s impressive, because I didn’t expect to have so much fun,” Sainz said in a video released by Formula 1. “I didn’t expect it to be so flowing, so wide, where you can actually lean on the car for so long.” He added: “If we were going fast in this, imagine it in a Formula 1 car.”

The biggest surprise was Turn 12, the banked section known as La Monumental. Sainz described the roughly 500-to-550-metre corner, built with a 24% gradient, as the feature that changed his view of the circuit most. “This is what impressed me the most,” he said. “I thought La Monumental would just have banking, but suddenly it’s not only banked, it’s also blind. You’ve created quite a cocktail.” He expects F1 cars to arrive there flat out, perhaps with only a small lift mid-corner to help the front end bite.

What impressed Sainz beyond that single corner was the way the lap changes character. The opening phase is tighter and more street-like, but the circuit opens dramatically after the run from Turn 7 into the heavy-braking Turn 8 zone. Sainz said that section stood out because “you go from a very tight, more like a street-style area, to suddenly a blind corner where you see absolutely nothing,” before the track opens up “into a different world.” For him, that switch is what gives Madring two distinct identities in one lap.

That change in rhythm also shaped his early read on the racing. Sainz identified the Turn 1-2 chicane as an obvious passing place, then pointed to the longer run into the Turn 5-6 chicane as another key area where energy deployment will matter. He said battery use will be “very strategic” because the circuit features two main straights and another long acceleration zone, while he also expects overtaking chances after La Monumental at Turn 13 and again in the final part of the lap.

Those comments matter because Madring is not yet a finished grand prix venue. The semi-permanent circuit remains under construction ahead of an FIA inspection at the end of the month, with handover targeted for May 31. If it clears those steps, Madrid will host the Spanish Grand Prix on September 13, 2026, under a deal that runs from 2026 to 2035, and Sainz’s first verdict suggests the new event could arrive with more speed and more passing potential than many would have assumed from the layout alone.