Only four cars changed position on track during the inaugural Madrid Grand Prix at the new Madring in September, and every one of those moves came down to a big tyre delta or a driver mistake. It was the lowest overtake tally of the 2026 season by a distance, against a pre-Madrid average of around 61 passes per race.
Two weeks later, Lewis Hamilton let rip in front of a live fan-zone crowd on Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend.
“They’re making some of these tracks where you just cannot overtake, and it’s frustrating,” Hamilton told the audience, speaking alongside Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc in comments reported by PlanetF1.
“I don’t know who’s designing them. Does anyone else here want to design a track? Yeah. I’m pretty certain there are lots of people here that would be able to do a better job than some of the ones we’ve got at the moment.”
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He caught himself, briefly.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have a filter. I don’t know where I’m supposed to get my filter from.”
A grid that agrees with him
Hamilton is not out on his own. Almost every driver who spoke after the Madrid race called the layout broken, singling out the Turn 5-6-7 chicane sequence that was meant to be the main passing zone.
Kimi Antonelli, who won the race, conceded the point to reporters.
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“It definitely doesn’t create overtaking opportunities and it doesn’t push you to try and make a move.”
Lando Norris, who spent long stretches stuck behind Leclerc despite fresher tyres, called the Madring “not a great racetrack” and said it worked in qualifying but not on race day. George Russell wanted “a change,” Oscar Piastri asked for “a much better overtaking zone,” and Fernando Alonso suggested reworking turns 5, 6 and 7 with the FIA.
The scale of the failure is easier to grasp with one number: the Madring, a brand-new, purpose-built venue, produced six fewer overtakes than Monaco.
Madrid organisers already promise a rebuild
Madrid organisers have already accepted that the layout has to change before the race returns in 2027. Event managing director Luis Garcia Abad spoke to Motorsport.com.
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“Being honest with you, the FIA defined clearly which is the way to improve the track layout, and we will be open because we will have to reinstall the track for the next year.”
The Turn 5 chicane, the pit-lane length and several combined corner entries are all on the list of things the FIA has flagged.
Hamilton’s own weekend to forget
Hamilton had arrived in Baku already treating his championship as gone. He qualified sixth, finished sixth in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and now sits third in the drivers’ standings on 199 points, 103 behind runaway leader Antonelli.
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