Three days at the Madring: faultless organisation, and the race that moved least all season

I spent all three days at the first Madrid Grand Prix, on a 325 euro presale pass, and I came away with a conclusion I did not expect: the Madring passed the hard exam and failed the easy one. Building a circuit from nothing, moving tens of thousands of people and emptying it without a jam was faultless. What failed is the part that is supposed to come free, which is cars overtaking each other. And once I got home and looked at the season numbers, it turned out to be worse than it had felt from the stands.

The part I least expected to work

On Friday I went by public transport and it took under an hour: the metro to Chamartín and two local train stops to Valdebebas, without ever feeling crowded. The way back was busier, though I still barely waited to get on. On Saturday and Sunday I drove, parked in a nearby neighbourhood and walked fifteen or twenty minutes. Plenty of people were walking back the same way, and despite the police perimeter around the circuit you could park without going far.

I did not queue to get in on any of the three days. There were many entry points and enough staff at each one to spread people out, at least on the north side. And the number I still find hard to believe: on Sunday it took me one minute to get out of the venue. No bottleneck, no jammed gate. Walking away was slow because there were a lot of us, but the exit itself was the best I have experienced.

I start here because this is exactly where everyone assumed Madrid would fall over. A new street circuit, with construction running late, had every ingredient for a queueing disaster. It was not.

Your row matters more than your grandstand

I watched the race from GE02, facing turn 8, the one before La Monumental. I was in row 3, and that is the part nobody tells you when you buy: from a low row you see very little. One to two seconds of car when they are going quickly. Nothing was blocking my view, it is not about fences or posts, it is that you are down at the bottom. A few rows higher in the same grandstand you could also see part of La Monumental and a stretch of the preceding straight, which is exactly what I did not have.

What I did have was a big screen directly in front, very easy to read, and a PA system at the right volume. When several cars went past together you stopped hearing it, but that was the cars, not the volume.

On the other two days I moved around. I watched F2 and F3 from GD12, on the straight after La Monumental, and from there you see a good deal more: the whole exit of the corner and the braking zone for the next one, overtakes included. It is also covered, which in Madrid in September is not a minor detail. The catch is that it is a more VIP area and costs a fortune, so I would not pay for it.

And here is the surprise of the weekend. I also spent time in general admission, expecting the usual, meaning dirt, crowds and turning up at seven in the morning to claim a spot, and I found the opposite: it is terraced, you see well from almost anywhere, it was not crowded, and it had more seconds of car in view than my paid seat. Two bridges overhead get in the way, admittedly. If I went back on a tight budget, that is where I would go.

The 2026 cars sound good, the F3 cars sound better

This was the question of the year with the new regulations. The F1 cars are loud enough, and they carry, though in my part of the track they were not flat out, and they never become unpleasant. You can clearly hear the downshifts under braking, although I never felt any vibration.

The striking part came on Saturday, when I found that F2 and especially F3 are far louder, to the point where I could not hear the person next to me while they went past. Three categories on one weekend from the same seat, and the loudest car is not the one at the top. On the echo off the IFEMA halls I cannot help: they were too far from where I sat.

La Monumental delivers, the rest of the track does not

La Monumental is everything it promised. It runs for 550 metres at 24% banking, climbing to a maximum height of 10 metres, you spend around 6 seconds inside it, and the circuit bills it as the longest corner on the calendar. It looks spectacular and leaves room for several lines, but I never saw anyone use it to overtake: arriving out of a braking zone, almost nobody got alongside.

From the rest of the circuit I came away feeling that nothing was happening. It felt worse than Monaco, which is the harshest comparison you can make about a layout. In F2 I did see a good many more passes, which tells you something: the track does not entirely prevent it, it is today's cars that do not fit.

I went home and checked

That feeling from the stands could easily have been an illusion, so I counted the places between each driver's grid slot and their finishing position across the 14 races 2026 has run so far. The stands had not misled me.

In Madrid each driver finished 1.50 places from where they started, which is the lowest of the season. The year's average is 2.72, and Monaco moved 2.6 times more (3.88), with Silverstone at the top on 4.05. So the grumbling in the stands was not just mood: the Madrid grid shuffled less than anywhere else this year, including the circuit where it is proverbial that nobody overtakes.

One detail makes the figure harder still. Four cars retired in Madrid, and every retirement hands a free place to everyone behind, so a race with attrition tends to measure more movement, not less. Even with that help, Madrid sets the minimum.

In its defence, the problem looks like design rather than concept. A couple of sections need reworking so there is somewhere to attack. The organisation is already solved, and that is the hard part to fix.

The heat, the queues and what a sandwich costs

It was extremely hot and many grandstands have no roof, so the sun is relentless. There were water refill points and plenty of drinks stands, but queues at both. Shaded areas do exist, though nobody wants to sit there when there are things to see. I saw no heat exhaustion, but plenty of sunburn.

Expensive next to normal life and fairly normal next to any event this size. At least there was real variety, with local Madrid food stands rather than the same four franchises.

The crowd never quite erupted

The moment the crowd was most alive was not the race, it was qualifying. It was very tight, Norris surprised everyone, and there everybody got to their feet. Sunday's race did not have a single moment like it. Nobody left early, but there was no roar either.

The loudest support was for Alonso. Near me there were a lot of Argentine fans cheering Colapinto and Mexicans behind Pérez, and the Spanish crowd applauded their own every time they came past. Even so, I have been to Barcelona and the atmosphere there was clearly better.

And I do not think the explanation has anything to do with Madrid. When I went to Barcelona, Aston Martin was not this bad and Sainz was at Ferrari. Today both Spaniards are at the back of the championship:

• Carlos Sainz (Williams), 16th of 23 on 6 points
• Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), 19th of 23 on 3 points

It is hard for a crowd to erupt when there is nothing to erupt about. That is not the circuit's fault, which is why the easy verdict that Madrid lacks soul strikes me as unfair. What it lacks is a reason.

The only thing that lit up Sunday was a fight between Spaniards

The most charged moment came from an unexpected direction. Sainz and Alonso made contact at turns 4 y 5 and Sainz was penalised. I watched it on the screen, and what happened afterwards was better than what happened on track.

Alonso, on the radio: “He closed me against the wall. At the start he hit two drivers and now he threw me into the wall. I had space, he did not need to squeeze me.”. Sainz, afterwards: “I do not think Fernando ever got alongside me. We arrived, we touched, he complained on the radio and he got me penalised.”. And Alonso later, finishing the job, that “I would rather be alive at the end of the race”.

I am not going to pretend I know which of them was right, because I do not. The only settled fact is the penalty. But it says plenty about Sunday that the most talked about thing at the Madrid Grand Prix ended up being an argument between the drivers running sixteenth and nineteenth.

If you go next year

Go for all three days. This is my firmest recommendation and the one with least to do with the race. Friday and Saturday bring karts, simulators, show cars, team activities and the F2 and F3 races, which are more entertaining than the F1 one. Paying for a pass and turning up only on Sunday wastes it.

On where to sit: if money is tight, general admission is genuinely fine, and I say that having paid for a seat that saw less. If you are going to spend, check the row before you check the letter on the grandstand, because a low row costs you the race. I heard good things about the Carlos Sainz grandstand, both the view and the free gifts, but I was not in it and cannot confirm that.

In your bag: a cap, a hand fan and a small empty bottle to refill. Officially you could not bring food or drink in (or a parasol), though the word going round was that they were flexible, though I did not try it, so do not count on it. And bring money, because you will need it.

What I would avoid: long trousers, arriving late, and trying to buy food just before the race starts, which is when the real queues form.

Would I go back?

Yes, with conditions, and I think that is the honest answer. I would go back to general admission, or to that Carlos Sainz grandstand if I can confirm the view is as good as people say. And I would go back if Alonso had a chance of doing something, or if by then they have reworked the layout so that overtaking is possible.

The experience is very good and the operation is better than anyone expected for a circuit put up in this much of a hurry. But it is expensive, and not everyone can afford this once a year. After a weekend where the most exciting things were Saturday qualifying and an argument on team radio, I completely understand anyone who decides to wait.