Madring
Spanish Grand Prix

Speeds, gears and braking figures below come from Lando Norris‘s 1:31.824 pole lap in 2026 qualifying, using OpenF1 car data. He braked in eight places and peaked at 334 km/h on the run to Turn 5. The slowest point was 81 km/h in first gear at Turn 17, in a final sector where he spent 7.1 seconds on the brakes.

Madring has one Grand Prix to its name, so most of its story is about how the Spanish Grand Prix came back to Madrid more than four decades after Jarama’s last race.

Formula1.com puts the construction of Madring at £125m ($166m), without saying who paid. The promoter, IFEMA Madrid, is also spending €47.55m ($54.2m) on new pavilions, parking and site work tied to the race. The hosting fee has never been published, and the only estimate, from Speedcafe in 2024, is about $50m a year. Madrid's mayor promised no public money, but critics point out that IFEMA is 62% owned by the regional and city governments.

Formula1.com put the construction of the 22-turn track at £125m ($166m) in June 2026. It didn't say who paid, and we haven't found a published split of public and private money for the circuit itself. The lap mixes public roads around the IFEMA exhibition center and Valdebebas with purpose-built sections. Separately, IFEMA budgeted €47.55m ($54.2m) for three new exhibition pavilions, heavy-vehicle parking and site work linked to the F1 project, and elDiario.es notes that this sum doesn't include the circuit. IFEMA's own plan expects 13 years of losses before that spending is paid back.

There's no official figure. Speedcafe's July 2024 table of estimated fees put Madrid at $50m a year, double its $25m estimate for Barcelona, and RacingNews365 lists Madrid's fee as unknown. IFEMA Madrid pays it as promoter. IFEMA is owned 31% by the Comunidad de Madrid, 31% by Madrid City Council, 31% by the Madrid Chamber of Commerce and 7% by Fundación Montemadrid, which elDiario.es counts as 62% public capital. Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida said the race was arranged "with the premise that there would be no public money investment". F1 announced a deal for 2026-2035, and Madring's own September 2026 release says it runs to 2036.

Pelouse general admission for Madring's first race in 2026 opened at €195 ($222) for three days and went to €345 ($393) in the second release. Grandstands started at €324 ($369) for Bronze at launch, and the top Gold seats rose from €799 ($911) at launch to €1,541 ($1,757) at the final call. Hospitality started at around €2,000 ($2,281) for two days in La Terminal. At launch prices, that made Madrid the 10th cheapest of the 23 races in our ticket price table.