The debut of Madring, the new circuit that will host the Spanish Grand Prix of Formula 1 from September 11 to 13, will demand a lot from the drivers, but Carlos Sainz does not believe this will necessarily turn the weekend in Madrid into a succession of incidents.
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The concern arose after the mid-season Formula 3 test at the circuit. In just two days, 19 red flags were recorded, 11 of them caused by touches on the wall. The scenario raised doubts about what might happen when F1 cars speed around the track for the first time.
Sainz admits that the layout will be one of the biggest challenges on the calendar. For him, the proximity of the walls and the characteristics of the circuit make the track quite demanding: “With the way they placed the walls and the track layout, it will be one of the biggest challenges in F1 in recent times,” he said. “The track reminds me a lot of Jeddah, it reminds me a lot of Baku, and even a bit of Macau in some aspects. So, having this in F1 with 1,000 horsepower will be a very interesting challenge.”
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Even with the result of the F3 test, Sainz does not expect the situation to get out of control. He recalls that Formula 1 has already been racing on tracks with similar characteristics and, so far, the close walls have not prevented good race weekends.
“Looking at the track and hearing what happened in the F3 test, I think we all expect safety cars, red flags, and yellow flags in qualifying. But it has been a trend or a tendency in F1 to go to this type of track, like Jeddah or Baku, which are closer to the city. They have more walls, and we haven’t had any problems with that. In fact, the races seem to be going very well everywhere we have been. It’s this same similar trend that we are moving towards,” concluded the Williams driver.
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