Carlos Sainz outlined the recommendation he has offered to organizers of Madrid’s new Components 1 race as town prepares to participate within the World Championships in 2026.
Madrid is ready to take over the Spanish Grand Prix from 2026 as a part of a 10-year contract with Components 1, and a brand new semi-permanent circuit is being developed across the Ifema Exhibition Centre.
The spotlight of Madring is the Ramonumental of Flip 12, a twenty fourth grade financial institution nook that runs at 550 meters.
Sainz, who was appointed ambassador for the race earlier this 12 months, performed an energetic function in selling the occasion. However past his official duties, Williams F1 drivers are additionally carefully concerned behind the scenes, working with the occasion’s organisation workforce to make sure that the monitor format is appropriate for overtaking.
“Clearly, the circuit itself has a really distinctive nook with 24% banks and a really lengthy mixture part,” he stated in Canada. “That is going to be the hero.
“It isn’t an open space the place you’ll be able to design your F1 circuit the way in which you need. It will be a extra avenue circuit setting.
“However for me, what I am attempting to assist are two fundamental zones to verify the brake zone, the automobile’s strategy and the way in which the corners are open are large enough to overhaul.
Sainz believes there isn’t a motive why fashionable circuits within the metropolis centre can not encourage overtaking. This cites Baku because the monitor that has supplied attention-grabbing races in recent times.
“Regardless of the truck is, we’re attempting to verify there’s an overtaking,” he stated. “Take a look at Baku. Baku would not have an amazing nook from a driver’s viewpoint. But when it creates a really lengthy, straight, good view. Everybody loves Baku.
“Clearly, simply because it is in Madrid, there’s a little bit extra character, however it must be overtaken.”
F1 has been criticized by some quarters, notably for introducing “previous” avenue circuits world wide, particularly because the collection steadily moved from Europe’s Heartland and expanded to new territory.
This has had a destructive affect elsewhere on the calendar, with Imola being faraway from subsequent 12 months’s calendar, and Zandvoort revealed that it will likely be holding the ultimate hour of 2026 F1 race.
Even Barcelona’s future in Components 1 is unsure, with present contracts for the circuit expired after 2026.
Nonetheless, Sainz acknowledges that including extra favorable races to the calendar is a part of Components 1’s enterprise, saying, “So long as the circuit has a character and character, there may be nothing towards having a brand new circuit or a brand new venue.”
“So far as Europe is anxious, that is enterprise. You are not saying you’ll be able to’t adapt your occasions to fashionable requirements and create a European Components 1 circuit, however you additionally perceive the attitude of eager to proceed rising your small business, and ensure you create races as much as the newest Components 1 requirements, like Mexico.
