The Williams driver will roll out onto a new circuit that mixes public streets with purpose-built sections just 15 minutes from his family home this weekend, when Formula 1 returns to Madrid for the first time in more than four decades.
For Carlos Sainz, the walls of the Madring already feel close.
“It looks like the circuit will be very intense, with turn after turn, wall after wall,” the 32-year-old Spaniard told reporters ahead of the race weekend. “It will be one of the most difficult and most intense for the driver.”
The 5.4-kilometre layout, built around the IFEMA exhibition district, has 22 corners and a signature banked curve called La Monumental, more than 500 metres long with a maximum banking of 24%. Sainz has been working the lap in the simulator and studying test footage.
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Baku and Jeddah with a home crowd
“It reminds me a mix of Baku and Jeddah, which are some of the newer circuits that have been added to the calendar and, sincerely, are some of the most fun tracks and the ones that promote the best racing,” Sainz said. “I’m excited to give it a try.”
Sunday’s race is the first Spanish Grand Prix held in the Madrid region for 45 years, since the 1981 event at the Jarama circuit on the capital’s outskirts. Sainz has raced a home Grand Prix in Barcelona throughout his career, but this one lands closer to where he grew up.
“I’ve been lucky enough to have a home race pretty much all through my career thanks to the Grand Prix in Barcelona,” he told Formula1.com about a project he has served as an adviser and promoter on.
“The fact that it’s a lot closer to my [family] home, only 15 minutes by car, and all my family and all my friends are from there, it’s probably going to feel even more special.”
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A weekend without a spare ticket
Every ticket for the three-day event has gone, F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali has confirmed. An estimated 350,000 people are expected across the weekend, with 60% from Spain and 40% from abroad, led by fans from Britain, the United States and Mexico, according to AP.
Sainz sits 16th in the drivers’ standings on 6 points in his first season with Williams. The title fight is a long way further up the sheet: Kimi Antonelli leads the championship on 267 points after 13 rounds, 66 clear of Mercedes team-mate George Russell, with Lewis Hamilton third for Ferrari on 191, according to Motorsport.com.
Practice starts on Friday, qualifying is on Saturday, and the inaugural Madrid Grand Prix runs on Sunday, 13 September.
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