F1 drivers check out the new Madring circuit ahead of the , as they discuss the dangers, difficulties in overtaking and getting a lap done, and talk about the La Monumental corner.
Jeddah? Macau? Monaco? Baku? Zandvoort? The new has been compared to a lot of other tracks on the F1 calendar due to its nature and layout. The drivers are bracing for a hard and tough outing in this weekend’s Spanish GP. The narrow and high-speed combination never works well for everyone, with the Saudi Arabian GP a prime example in recent times.
Of course, the eventually find a way through to get things right. But still, ahead of the start, they have mixed emotions, with most agreeing that it will be dangerous. Even though some feel it will not be as dangerous as Jeddah already is, the majority agree that defending will be much easier and overtaking much harder, as seen in Monaco.
Even getting a lap right in qualifying will be a challenge, which the drivers accept. Almost everyone has had a run in the simulator, but they are waiting for the real feel, as the speed and power can only be ascertained once someone is really on track. One of its major attractions is the long, banked La Monumental, which, of course, everyone is looking to try in the real car.
Here’s a list of F1 drivers speaking about the dangers:
Sergio Perez:
“I have tried in simulator. Scary, I’ll say. It’s a bit like reminds me a bit of Jeddah. But proper track, really happy to be here and I think the atmosphere here is going to be is going to be one of the best. I think [it can be] very [punishing track]. It all depends what sort of grip level we get. But I think, yeah, there is no room for error. I think I like those those places, like you get punished and is very rare depending on which corner you do a mistake you might get away with it. But in most places there is no margin for it. Hard to say because the sim obviously I cannot try much of the energy stuff. I think overtaking will be hard. It’s going to be in my mind closer to Singapore. I don’t think there is a place more dangerous than than Jeddah, I think Jeddah is really quite dangerous and I don’t think Madrid itself will be will be something like out of of the of the level. I think nobody knows. We have to wait and see.”Oliver Bearman:
“Based on the simulator running, I would say so. I think it’s going to be one of those races where we’re very much focused on qualifying similar to Budapest, Monaco, Zandvoort. It it seems to be a track where it’s going to be a big challenge to overtake. It’s a shame in a way because I think the the layout is okay, but but there are some features of the circuit which naturally deter overtaking. One of them is the braking for Turn 5, which is curved and that’s the real overtaking opportunity and that kind of curved braking takes away any possibility of different lines and and sending one up the inside. So yeah, that’s a shame and maybe a bit of an oversight, but it means that we’re going to be fully focused on qualifying and to do a good qualifying, of course you need full confidence and that starts from your first lap on on Friday.“It [La Monumental] could could be interesting, but it’s just coming straight after a very high speed chicane, so I think it’s going to be a challenge to be close in the first place. But I think as a spectacle it’s going to be really cool. I am quite excited to drive that corner. It’s the first real banked corner for us. I mean of course we have the last corner in Zandvoort, which is always flat generally in the dry. Turn 3 is more of a low speed with that banking, but this one is more oval-esque except we’re turning right. So yeah, if you’re turning right on an oval generally that’s not good, but yeah, I am excited to drive it. I think it’s a cool unique feature and I have heard it looks really nice with the stands all around it. It makes an interesting atmosphere.”
Arvid Lindblad:
“I think Monaco is up more unforgiving. But yeah, I mean, it’s not a very forgiving track, no. I think all three circuits now has not much margin, but yeah, it’s pretty, yeah, this one definitely doesn’t have much scope for error. No, just the track itself. I think it’s just it’s going to be hard enough for us as drivers. It’s very new. For the team, it’s going to be new setting up the car. For the engine guys, normally for them, yes, it’s a very new PU, but they can sort of look at the previous years to get an idea, whereas here, it’s just new for everyone. It’s going to be a big challenge and it’s not just like a normal basic easy circuit, it’s there’s a lot going on. It’s complicated.“For me, I’ve said before that I think the closest thing to it is maybe Macau, like a Macau slash Jeddah kind of thing. So yeah, I think just for all of us getting up to speed and just getting the most out of the package as a as a group will be difficult. Yeah, I don’t I think it’s [La Monumental] going to be hard to be flat, so it will be a corner. It’s not going to be like the last corner in Zandvoort, which you know, you don’t it’s not a corner. I don’t think there’s going to be too many lines, but let’s see. Maybe they should have invited some of the NASCAR guys to see where they go. How much grip so it seems especially when it comes to a street track, they’re more inaccurate. They’re less accurate on a street circuit than a normal circuit, for sure. But they’re still pretty good.”
Alexander Albon:
“It’s an interesting track. I mean without saying the obvious, a lot of walls, a lot of high speed corners, a lot of blind corners. Gives me vibes of Macau but more for an F1 track. Little bit concerning the blind spots in some of the corners. Like if there is a car that’s stopped on the other side of the corner, I hope they’re just quick on the VSCs and the red flags. Inevitably there are going to be a few crashes this weekend. Wish they did something a bit different with the braking zones and not having them too much angled if you know what I mean. Yeah, you got a lot of combined corners which just thinking of overtaking on Sunday it’s quite feels like it’s quite easy to defend. You just put the car in the middle of the track and and get a car that’s going to go past you. So that just means that it will be a more of a deployment overtake than a than a braking overtake. But yeah, it will be challenging.“I think more technically speaking, there’s a lot of corners on this track that will be between 90 and 100% throttle. So, it’s like, I think the top teams will be flat out. For the for the midfield teams and the backfield teams are a bigger lift which has a big effect in deployment. So without going too technical, if you can do a corner flat or not massively changes the way the deployment works. And you don’t want to go in qualifying suddenly all these corners start to become flat and your deployment starts to move around a lot. That’s what we’ve found in the sim so far. But then just the general thing of it actually quite smooth from what I’ve seen so far. I think they’ve ground the braking zone of Turn 5 which was a big concern for us going into the weekend watching the F3 drivers a few weeks ago go around. And then the technical part will be can you make a car that is good over the kerbs from Turn 1 to Turn 5.
“But you want the stiffness in the car for sector two and sector three because actually the stiffer car gives you more load. But then you are going to sacrifice your Turn 1, Turn 2 kerb riding. And then the final thing is, it is one of those weekends where Q3 run two for those guys, Q1 run three for us, you end up just sending it across the kerbs and it’s, I mean that Turn 5-6 feels a little bit like I hope there’s a rhythm to it and it’s actually not that bad but I think there’s an angle there that you’re going to you’re going to just send it. If you get through the other side you’re going to be two or three tenths quicker. If you’re not and if you don’t want to take that risk you lose out on those few tenths. So good. Yeah, I think the other thing which we’ve seen in the simulator already is the tyres are going to be absolutely screaming. So sector two and sector three is going to be a challenge.
“Not a concern [about safety]. I’m just I’m always a little bit surprised that these tracks are safe. Like even if you talk Miami, like the back straight, the way that it’s kinked and you don’t have a clear view of what’s actually happening in front of you. It’s been a discussion point before. I think that I’ve looked at the barriers. The barriers look like they’re all in the good places. The safety barriers have done a good job on those places. Generally, all the hard concrete walls are are okay. Like they’re they’re not -touch wood – touching for for the most part. But yeah. I think the more the more.
“I worry about the marbles in the race. You could imagine if from what I’ve heard it’s very low grip at this this point in in the weekend they resurfaced the track quite late. I think it was May which if you think about what’s the last resurfaced track we did? You know when the oils are still coming off the track. I can’t remember Turkey is like the most recent standout one that that we had. You then form a single line because all the rubber is only in one place and if you could stay away from that line then there’s no grip. So on top of trying to find clean air and trying to go up high on the banking, you’ll have marbles to contend with as well later in into the race. So you got to be careful with that. Personally, I don’t think you can do that many lines. The track’s quite narrow and it’s different when you have clean air and and there’s space, whereas if you have a little snap you’re into the wall immediately. Drivers aren’t as willing to stick it up to the top of the banking and take the risk of running a high line. So not sure. I hope I’m proving wrong, but I think that part of the track’s not going to offer that much overtaking.”
Charles Leclerc:
“I mean, obviously I did a few laps, some laps on the road behind the road car and two laps I think in a Formula 1 car, but with cameras all around and with a lot of dust on track, but it looked like a very challenging track and I think exactly the kind of tracks that I enjoy as a driver. It’s true to say as well that I think coming Sunday the amount of overtaking opportunities will be very little, but I think in qualifying it will be a very cool and challenging track for drivers and for that I’m looking forward to it.”Liam Lawson:
“I’ve actually been around it earlier earlier today, so yeah, it’s going to be a very interesting track to drive. Very technical, obviously I think just quite challenging for us and through the weekend trying to put laps together. I think it’s one of those tracks that you’re not going to feel like you’ve nailed a lap, honestly half the time. It’s going to be sort of there’s going to be one or two mistakes in a lap probably all the time. Quite difficult. Not like not like Monaco. I think Monaco was one where we could push flat out and actually have no limitations, so I would say it’s not like it’s not going to be like that, but I think it definitely is somewhere that is, more so than Monza or something like that.“You can yes probably make a bit of a difference. I just think it’s going to be very challenging for us to put a lap together to feel like you’ve nailed everything. If you do it’s probably going to make quite a big difference. But it’s pretty sketchy in places to be honest. Like it’d be very easy to get wrong. It’s not somewhere I don’t feel like a lot of flow. It’s very technical and sort of hard to just hard to put together, but it might be exciting to perform on track.”
Lando Norris:
“Very difficult to say just the layout of everything is very different here, more in line with Zandvoort, the fact you got some kind of cambered corners, off-camber. I think you have a good combination of all speed ranges, slow, medium and high. So I don’t know. It’s very difficult to predict these things and I don’t like to waste my energy doing so, but there’s certainly less places that visually look or that we know of that are as much of a test for the car compared to Monza and being the slow speed and just the overall efficiency of the car with the straight lines. So I’m hoping, yeah, just a few corners can help shift us back in the direction of being more competitive and gives us a better chance of winning.“I mean, it’s a difficult track. We have a lot of blind corners, a lot of corners, you cannot see around, so it’s difficult to predict things. This just makes it always a bigger challenge inside the cockpit of a car. The fact you cannot see more than 50% of a corner at one time, so you have these two a lot of braking zones that are combined with a lot of steering, so I don’t know what challenges we’ll have, but we have all of them, but yeah, the same for everyone. And I was excited, like I mean I always enjoy coming to a new circuit and trying to go to a new place, it’s also you have to see it as an opportunity for yourself to try and prepare in the best way possible and use what you can to your advantage and try and make something useful out of it, so yeah, I look forward to just the fact it’s a new track, no one’s driven it well for a couple, and we look forward to the challenge.”
George Russell:
“Yeah, I mean, I just I said in the TV pen before when I heard about the 20 red flags in F3, I was a bit surprised. And then after I drove on the sim, I was surprised there’s only 20 red flags. So it’s a crazy circuit. I would put it arguably what the the most risky circuit of the whole calendar because you have real high-speed corners, sort of Jeddah-esque. The walls are very close, so there’s no margin for error. But then you have other corners that are quite like Baku where you’re coming from a high speed into a slow braking zone. You’re braking and turning at the same time, so locking tyres are going to be easy and if you lock up, you’ll be straight in the wall. So excited to try that out. I think it’s going to be really challenging for us as drivers. The race is going to be challenging to overtake, so on the whole it’s it’s not an easy one.”Pierre Gasly:
“I’ll put my money on the red flag, that’s for sure. Driving wise, I must say in the sim it was very enjoyable and very exciting. I got a good read and feel of pretty much every single wall at every single corner. So actually I know what to do and what not to do. But I think it’s going to be very challenging, especially in terms of evolution. Probably a lot of track evolution kind of slightly off-track braking zones which are not fully straight, kind of like snaky, very twisty type of corners, many corners, a lot of blind banking up and downs, undulation all the way.“So I think yeah, I expect a very tricky track, challenging for us, which makes it good because you can always aim to a bit more difference driving wise. But again as a type of track a bit like Monaco where I think if you do a slight mistake you can have big consequence straight away. So it’s about risk and reward every single braking zone and sort of speed that you carry through the corners and yeah. Must say it’s exciting. At the same time I think it’s going to be quite disruptive weekends from yeah, how easy it will be to have a crash.”
Max Verstappen:
“Well, it could be like yeah, in some places of course when you have a tiny moment it can result in a crash but I mean Jeddah is the same. We’ve spoken about that already before, so you just have to deal with it. Try to figure out the margins of course, try to keep it under control but of course when you’re on the limit it’s easy to make a little mistake but let’s just see how do we can go.”Fernando Alonso:
“I think the track seems difficult, first of all, to learn, very technical, a lot of kerb riding and a couple of high-speed sections where you need to get very close to the walls, which is very attractive and very high adrenaline for a driver. Close to Jeddah, I think, some sections. But then, as I said, I think one thing is the simulator and then reality always gives you a different feeling. So, I’m looking forward to FP1 and learning the track, you know, from the car and discovering all these details, you know, that always change a little bit the perception of what you came with, an idea, from the simulator. I think the grip level will be probably the biggest thing for me. If the track is dusty and too dirty at the beginning, that masks a little bit the learning process and, in a way, the fun of it, because you are just taking a lot of risk and unwanted risk because the car is not really responding to your inputs.“And then you only get to quali and the race when the track is in a good place. But we have F3, we have F2, so maybe the track can be, you know, already good on Friday. If that’s the case, I think we have a very good weekend in front of us as a show, you know, for everyone else. And regarding the quali and the race, I think all the street circuits are rewarding more quali. I struggle to believe that the race on Sunday will be better than the quali on Saturday in terms of, you know, rewarding and driver feeling. This year Sundays sometimes are fun as well to watch because, you know, this battery championship, you just overtake. There are unwanted overtakes, you know. In Monza, even for us, I did two or three overtakes and I didn’t want to overtake in that place, but the car in front of me was just, you know, with an empty battery and I overtook. But it was not the plan.”