F1 drivers and teams have called for changes to the Madring layout after the inaugural 2026 Spanish GP showed the circuit’s lack of overtaking opportunities.
The 5.4km Madrid street circuit produced just four overtakes from lights out to the chequered flag. However, this came as little surprise, as drivers expected overtaking to be difficult ahead of the weekend because the circuit lacks long straights leading into heavy braking zones. The narrow and technical design also features several corners where drivers must brake and turn at the same time, making it difficult to attack the car ahead.
Despite those overtaking issues, drivers have generally praised the Madring as a challenging and exciting circuit to drive over one lap, especially in qualifying. However, the consensus is that changes are needed to make racing more competitive, with the Turn 5-6-7 section repeatedly identified as one area that could be redesigned ahead of next season.
Kimi Antonelli
“It definitely doesn’t create overtaking opportunities and it doesn’t push you to try and make a move because, just 80% of the time you might have a contact. So, I think especially in the second chicane, if I would have turned in, me and Lando [Norris] would have touched and probably gone in the wall and blocked the road or, you know, definitely wouldn’t have been nice. So, I think there are some corners that need to be changed to create more overtaking opportunities because right now, yes, it’s nice over one lap, but for sure in the race, you know, you’re just stuck behind.”
Lando Norris
“Yeah, I think there are some obvious changes they should make. They should get rid of 18, 19. Useless. Just have more of a straight into a hairpin. Like, I don’t know how someone looks at this design and goes, “Mint.” Yeah, I think there’s a lot of opportunity. I think they can make it into a track that’s good for racing, and I’m excited to come back here next year if they can make these changes because I think it’s a track that is good fun to drive and it can be a great racetrack.
“To me, it’s not a great racetrack. It’s great in qualifying, but straight line from 17 straight to 20, have a much wider entry like Austin Turn 1 or Turn 10 in Austin, big hairpin. You’ll create much better opportunities for everyone and you’ll be able to enjoy the race. So yeah, there are some simple changes and maybe some trickier ones, like Turn 5, 6, 7.
“It’s hard to know exactly what’s the best thing. The fact you have to turn and brake basically defeats the whole object of racing. So, they can do some simple changes, I think, easy changes and maybe some more tricky, but I hope they do it because then it should be more exciting for everyone.”
Charles Leclerc
“For sure it’s something that maybe we need to work on coming back here next year. I mean it’s a great track and honestly I think everybody did a great job with the track as it is. It’s particularly in qualifying, but in the race there are some corners and it doesn’t require a big change. I think just a small change or two small changes could change significantly the racing that we have here.”
George Russell
“I don’t know what but they need to do something. They need to make a change because every track needs to have an overtaking opportunity. And after a after a bit of a straight, this one has that tight chicane and that corner’s, it’s a real challenge, but it’s not pleasant after 60 laps smashing those kerbs. My head was a bit sore by the end, so.
“Yes, but we’re all quite selfish and nobody can be bothered to give their time, we’ve got busy schedules and there’s a lot of limitations when you actually look at the layout, there’s not really much you can do. It’s tight, there’s bridges, yeah.”
Oscar Piastri
“I mean it just needs a much better overtaking zone, that chicane, you know even the overtakes they got pulled off it was normally because someone had to cut the track and give up the spot rather than actually overtaking, so yeah, hopefully they can make some changes because at the moment I think they made the track more difficult to overtake on than it was.”
Liam Lawson
“It’s so hard to overtake. I mean I had to take a lot of risk with Franco to make that pass and I barely honestly made the corner without doing track limits, so it’s just hard the way this track layout is, but it’s fun to qualify on, just difficult to race on.”
Fernando Alonso
“Yeah, probably we need to see with the FIA what we can do. Maybe Turn 5, 6, 7 would be nice to have a thing there, but I think there is a limitation because we will go underneath the highway or something. There is a bridge there, so I think it’s going to be challenging, but I think they are open to listen our comments and I don’t know if the race was fun or not to watch but no difficult overtaking. So maybe there are a couple of tweaks to think about within the limitations of the space.”
Carlos Sainz
“I think good street tracks like Baku, Macau tend to have one single overtaking spot with a very long straight. We just need to have a look where there’s the possibility to add that overtaking spot and see if it’s is it if it’s feasible, but I think it would do a upgrade favorite to the track to have that because the rest of the event I think for our first time I think it’s been a success.
“I don’t know if you agree with me, but I think it has been a great race track, a great city to come to, a great organization, and yeah probably the only thing that the track needs now is one overtaking spot. I’ll let you know once I talk to the FIA [about Turn 5].”
Yuki Tsunoda
“Yeah, I think Turn 5 is the place that something it’s the only place that it’s almost can overtake. So and also it’s very narrow, like normal way too much to overtake, so I think it’d be more simple, more like one corner you can extend down straight line, that would be good.”
Sergio Pérez
“I think it’s a track that has character. When you compare it to Monaco, it has I think more chance to overtake. I think the track itself, there can be a bit of a change, to help a little bit of overtaking. But other than that, it’s really good really good place to race really good fun. Yeah, even in these cars it can be fun on this track.”
Ollie Bearman
“I mean you only have to look at the layout and it’s quite clear that it’s going to be a poor track for racing. Not only do you have a lot of long combined exits where it’s really tough to put power down, but also you have a lot of combined entries as well. And yeah, it’s very easy to drive a bit dangerously defending your position and therefore very hard to send an overtake. So we said that already on Friday to the FIA and we need to look into a way to make the track a bit more interesting for us because it’s interesting in quali to drive for sure, but in the race it’s very poor.
“I mean when you when you arrive and you see that layout and you’re like, what do you expect us to do? It’s a bit of a shame. And especially you can understand in a track like Baku, like Singapore, where there’s simply no nowhere else for the layout to go. But if you compare here, I mean basically from turn five all the way until 17 that there was a bit of free reign let’s say, and I don’t think that free reign was used to the maximum of its potential.
“Clearly, yeah. I mean I don’t think you need a driver necessarily to help, but I mean even you guys, it doesn’t take a not, I was going to say it doesn’t take a genius…not that I’m genius. It doesn’t take a genius to make a track layout that that lends itself to overtaking, and they managed to do it like I said in Baku even better than this track, and Baku had a lot more limitations with buildings around. So on that sense it’s been a bit of a disappointment, but hopefully next year it’s going to be a bit more interesting, and actually I’ll be happy if we can be fighting for the points as well. That would be good.”
Alex Albon
“It definitely needs some, I know there’s some open mindsets to make some track changes for next year and there was, I mean if every car cars can overtake then it’s going to be over for every weekend, so I think there only needs to be a couple of changes to fix the problem. Otherwise honestly it’s not a bad track. It’s quite a fun track to drive just you saw in the races. It’s pretty boring.
“All of it is around turn three to turn five and that all of that whole area needs to be re-done maybe straighter braking zones We need to remove that kerb maybe it’s good for racing or it’s great to pull, but it’s not good for racing. Banking, as great as it is, it’s not really doing a good enough job in turn 13 maybe it needs to be a slower corner with a braking zone.”
Pierre Gasly
“I think the turn five there’s a lot of space there so just the way the corner is, I think can be re-thought and probably do a better job because now we’re cutting a lot the kerbs and yeah I think that turn five needs to be adjusted. I must say I was yeah not to say that I mean the track is amazing to drive and I think they’ve done a good job.
“But yeah I’m still I’m sure we’re going to be having conversation with them on how to improve it and whether this conversation could have taken place earlier probably, but yeah at the moment the way the sort of braking zone is made there is just not really helping and it’s yeah not really favoring any overtake so I’m sure it can be slightly improved.”
Franco Colapinto
“It was frustrating when I was behind slower or in front of slower cars and couldn’t get past, and until I got past, I took a lot of risks trying to overtake and I couldn’t, and I think that’s what we need to fix for next year. And quali is an extremely exciting track. It’s really difficult and full of g energy, and it’s what the drivers love to where the drivers love to race and what the drivers love, and I think we need to keep that.
“I don’t know if Carlos has [shared inputs], because I have seen him a few times but we haven’t, but of course personally I liked it and it was an extremely exciting track to drive in qualifying and to push the limits. It’s a combination between Jeddah and Monaco and just very high-speed corners, very long, a lot of blind braking, high kerbs. It’s fun to drive, but then in the race it’s tricky to pass.”
Valtteri Bottas
“It’s a long straight after turn two, but that kink that narrow chicane at the end it’s not ideal. So I hope they can still do changes because I think it could be a lot better than what I don’t mean it’s a cool track, but it could be better. I think it [Turn 5] gets too narrow. I think it just that the apex you can only enter with one car. That’s the issue. So hopefully they can there’s a bit more space to modify some things.”
Esteban Ocon
“I think yeah, there are things possible, to improve, I think that turn five needs to be reviewed. I don’t think it’s the most interesting corner. It’s a corner that you just straight line, with the kerbs, but maybe if we have a better hairpin, like a left-right, maybe there could be some overtaking spot already at the start. You cannot go side by side.
“There’s only one car that’s going to go through. So it’s interesting alone, but for racing, not. So I think that could be that could be improved, but again it’s been a very nice track to drive on. And next year with more degradation, I expect that it would be better racing.”
Gabriel Bortoleto
“I almost fell asleep as well. The track layout is cool, but obviously if we could add some type of overtaking in the track would be amazing. The track is quite nice. Just the jumping T5s to do that 50 laps, you get quite a lot of headache at the end of the race, so it’s not the easiest ones for our body, but still it’s very fun and it was a good race in the sense of driving in a track like this.
“It’s like Monaco faster, but boring as much as Monaco. I think it’s correct. I think you cannot dive bomb or send it when you’re already such in the limits in a normal braking zone. And the way for us to dive bomb or send a big overtake is just literally breaking in straight line.
“I think it would be nice if we had one at least one place to overtake, but unfortunately that’s not how they designed it, so there is a good parts of the track and bad parts, for sure the race inside of it is terrible. I think it would be nice if new tracks could come to the drivers and we could give some opinions because we know in types of tracks like this that overtaking is going to be very tough, so maybe in the future.”
Arvid Lindblad
“I mean the fortunate thing is it’s a street circuit and it’s in an industrial park, so they can they can move things around. So hopefully they can try to make an overtaking zone because I think it’s pretty clear that today there wasn’t one and I think we owe it to the facility and to the fans because it’s a great city. It’s a great event.
“I got goosebumps before the race, feeling the energy from the crowd and I think we should try to do a bit better to…I don’t know how many overtakes there were in this race, but probably less than five or 10. I mean, it was other than lap one, it was pretty yeah, it was a bit it wasn’t the most exciting race.”
Lance Stroll
“Yeah, we need some good braking zones, some hairpins. Maybe instead of that turn five chicane, like a hairpin or something you can dive down the inside.”
Toto Wolff
“Yeah, I think for a first [race], it’s probably one of the best, or maybe the best that I’ve seen so far. Like you say, it’s a temporary circuit. It’s something that is challenging for the drivers. Maybe Macau, or maybe Monaco. And the location is good. We are thinking about how much more can we do next year in terms of the events here or presentations because we have the space and that’s very rare. So I would say congratulations for first.
“And that is the tricky bit, you know, doing a track that is spectacular also for the drivers. And then building it in a way that there is lots of overtaking. And I had a discussion yesterday with the CEO of the circuit and they are totally open-minded about next year.
“We’ve had discussions with the FIA, what is it we should do, how is it that we should lay the track out when it comes to overtaking also. And there is a constant discussion that I think that they are on it and make changes a little bit here or there. Obviously, I feel like if you try to find a hair in a suit, then you always find one. But being here for the first time, I am very impressed.”
Laurent Mekies
“You know, I think as far as the, you know, at first it was an incredible event, that’s my opinion, incredible events, incredible venue setup, massive paddock, massive garage area. I think it was a fantastic track in terms of being a driver’s track, all speed, all sort of corner speed, and all of that in between the walls.
“So, as you pointed out, I think the only shortfall is the overtaking opportunity. I’m guessing it is stuff that can be addressed, given the space that we have around the track layout, but again, I’m not a track designer, but I would think that there will be certainly a common desire to want to improve, probably the only aspect or the main aspect that remains behind here, which is the overtaking opportunity.”
Mike Krack
“I think it’s fantastic, what they have done here. Layout is something you can always discuss, but the ones that have been around for long know that in the first year, in a non-permanent venue, it can be really chaos. But I think what they have done here is really, really great.
“Now, whether the race turns out the way it does or not, it’s really difficult to predict when you define the layout and all that, but I think people are open-minded if they want to make some small tweaks or changes. I don’t know what the discussions are, but I think all in all, if you look at the event, the infrastructure, the preparation, how neat and well-organised everything was, I think we have to really congratulate F1 and the organisers for this.”
