Madrid’s Madring: La Monumental Set to Transform Spanish Grand Prix
Formula 1 has a new stage, and it is not easing itself into the spotlight.
The Spanish Grand Prix has packed its bags and left Barcelona for the capital, with Madrid’s freshly drawn Madring locked in as host until 2035. No lights out, no formation lap, not even a practice run with the full grid yet – and already one corner has the paddock talking like it has been on the calendar for years.
Turn 12. La Monumental.
A corner built to be a landmark
On paper, the Madring is a hybrid: part public road, part purpose-built asphalt, switching character as it winds through Madrid. At times it will feel like a street circuit, walls looming, lines tight. Then it opens up into something closer to a permanent facility, with the flow and rhythm to match.
But all of that is just context. The track’s identity will be forged at Turn 12.
La Monumental is a long, banked hairpin – a 270-degree arc with up to 13.5 degrees of banking. That number alone won’t scare anyone who has watched cars cling to the 18-degree walls at Zandvoort, but the real story here is speed. This is no slow, grinding hairpin. The expectation is that modern F1 machinery will attack it flat out.
Williams driver Carlos Sainz has already had a taste. Earlier this year he lapped the layout in a Ford Mustang GT, and even in that heavier, slower car, the potential was obvious.
“My feeling is the corner is going to be flat out the whole way, and it’s going to create an overtaking opportunity into the next tight left,” he said.
That is exactly what race directors dream of when they sign off on a new circuit: a corner that is not just spectacular on its own, but one that sets up the next move.
Sainz also pointed to how the banking could shape the battles through La Monumental.
“The banking will allow you to maybe position the car higher up or lower down if you want to get clean air to follow,” he said. Stay high, stay low, hunt the grip, dodge the dirty air. The line will not be fixed; it will be negotiated.
And there is another twist. If the corner does turn out to be “easy flat,” as Sainz suspects, then the driver who dares to hug the inside could turn La Monumental into a slipstream generator.
“If you stay tight, you will produce quite a bit of slipstream, like you see in Zandvoort,” he said.
One corner, multiple options, and a long straight after it. That is how iconic overtaking zones are born.
Antonelli in command as title race hits Madrid
La Monumental might be the new star of the show, but the man arriving with the biggest spotlight on him is Kimi Antonelli.
The Mercedes driver comes into the Spanish Grand Prix with a commanding 66-point lead over teammate George Russell, his title campaign supercharged by a stunning victory in Italy last Sunday. That win came from 19th on the grid – the kind of charge that shifts a season from promising to ominous.
Behind the silver cars, the picture is crowded and volatile. Lewis Hamilton sits third in the standings on 191 points for Ferrari, followed by Lando Norris on 171 for McLaren and Charles Leclerc on 155 for Ferrari. Max Verstappen, now the hunter rather than the hunted, holds 127 points for Red Bull.
Oscar Piastri, meanwhile, continues to grind out results. The Australian is seventh in the championship on 116 points, 151 adrift of Antonelli, after finishing fifth at Monza. He does not yet have the points to trouble the title leader, but a track like Madring – new to everyone, with a bold, banked corner at its heart – has a way of shaking up the established order.
Behind them, the next wave is already snapping at the heels. Isack Hadjar has 71 points for Red Bull, Liam Lawson 51 for Racing Bulls/Red Bull, and Pierre Gasly 41 for Alpine. Further back, rookies and rebuild projects are fighting for every scrap: Arvid Lindblad on 29, Franco Colapinto on 21, Oliver Bearman on 18, and a tightly packed group in single digits, including Carlos Sainz on 6 for Williams.
Every one of them will see La Monumental not just as a corner, but as an opportunity.
Spain under lights, Madrid on show
The race itself will unfold late into the night for Australian viewers. The Spanish Grand Prix takes place on Sunday, September 13, with the lights going out at 11pm in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, the ACT and Tasmania, 10:30pm in South Australia and the Northern Territory, and 9pm in Western Australia.
By then, the drivers will have learned where the grip really lies on Madring’s mixed layout, which kerbs they can attack, which walls they must respect. But nobody will have a bank of historic data to lean on. No decade of setups. No archive of onboard laps.
That is what makes this weekend compelling.
A new city. A new circuit. A new corner with a name and a personality before a single championship lap has been completed.
La Monumental is ready. Now the question is simple: which driver will be brave enough to write their name across its first great moment?
