The Spanish Grand Prix 2026 is the race that finally brings Formula 1 back to the Spanish capital, and it does so on a circuit nobody on the grid has raced. Round 14 of the season runs at the brand-new Madring from 11-13 September, with lights out for the 57-lap grand prix at 14:00 BST on Sunday. Here is everything worth knowing before the weekend starts: the session times, what the circuit actually is, and the championship picture Kimi Antonelli carries into it.
Spanish Grand Prix 2026 session times (all BST)
Friday 11 September
First practice: 12:30-13:30
Second practice: 16:00-17:00
Saturday 12 September
Third practice: 11:30-12:30
Qualifying: 15:00-16:00
Sunday 13 September
Race: 14:00 (57 laps)
Madrid runs on Central European Summer Time, an hour ahead of the UK, so add one hour for local times — the race starts at 15:00 in the city. In the UK, BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra 2 and BBC Sounds carry live commentary, and the BBC’s coverage guide confirms qualifying is also covered on the BBC Sport website and app. Live television rights in the UK remain with Sky Sports F1, with free-to-air highlights on Channel 4.
What is the Madring?
The Madring is a hybrid: part public road, part purpose-built asphalt, wrapped around the IFEMA exhibition complex and the Valdebebas district in the north-east of the city, close to Barajas airport. It is a little over five kilometres long, carries more than 20 corners, and its signature feature is a banked corner — a rarity in modern grand prix racing, and the element drivers have been most curious about in simulator running.
It is also the first time Formula 1 has raced in Madrid since 1981, when the Spanish Grand Prix was held at Jarama, roughly 20 miles north of the city. The championship’s return is a long-term arrangement rather than a one-off, and the Madring takes the Spanish Grand Prix name over from the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, which had held the race almost without interruption since 1991.
Barcelona has not disappeared from the 2026 calendar. This is the second Spanish round of the year: Lewis Hamilton took his first win as a Ferrari driver at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix earlier in the season, and that circuit continues under its own event name.
One footnote on the venue’s ambitions: MotoGP has already ruled out following F1 there for now. Deputy chief executive Carlos Ezpeleta told Motorsport.com during the Aragon weekend that the layout is not currently suitable for grand prix motorcycles, even as the series adds an Adelaide street circuit for 2027.
The championship picture heading to Madrid
Antonelli arrives 66 points clear at the top of the drivers’ standings after one of the great modern comeback drives. Starting 19th at Monza following an engine-component penalty, the 20-year-old was challenging for the lead inside 16 laps, took fresh tyres under a virtual safety car and passed team-mate George Russell with three laps to go — a first Italian victory at Monza since Ludovico Scarfiotti in 1966. Only John Watson, winning from 22nd at Long Beach in 1983, has come from further back to win a world championship race.
Russell, who needed Monza to claw back ground, all but conceded the title afterwards. Max Verstappen completed the podium from a Red Bull he said felt like a turtle against the Mercedes, and Ferrari’s home weekend collapsed: Charles Leclerc crashed out at the Parabolica on lap two while defending from Oscar Piastri, and Hamilton finished sixth. Pierre Gasly’s maiden pole position for Alpine on Saturday was the weekend’s other surprise.
Two intra-team rows travel to Madrid with the paddock. Ferrari’s management is under pressure to define its driver rules after the Leclerc-Hamilton contact, and McLaren has said it will review how Lando Norris and Piastri are allowed to race each other following their Monza scrap. A brand-new circuit, with no reference data and a single practice day before qualifying, is not the place either team would choose to have that conversation.
Who is driving what
There is one change from the entry list on paper. Isack Hadjar misses a third consecutive grand prix with the wrist fracture he sustained boxing at the end of the summer break, so Liam Lawson stays in the second Red Bull alongside Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda keeps the Racing Bulls seat he has occupied since Zandvoort. Red Bull says Hadjar will be in Madrid supporting the team but is not ready to drive; team boss Laurent Mekies had already called a comeback on this short turnaround “tricky”.
Tsunoda scored his first point of the season at Monza in tenth, a result Audi has notified the FIA it intends to appeal after the stewards declined to penalise him for causing an extra formation lap. Williams, meanwhile, arrives in a retro 1981 livery, a nod to the last time F1 visited Madrid.
What to expect on Sunday
Heat, first of all. After the heat hazard declared at Monza, all five Madrid sessions are forecast dry and sunny, with race day the hottest at highs of 33C — a meaningful variable in a season whose new hybrid power units and active aerodynamics have already made energy management the defining skill of a grand prix.
Beyond that, honest uncertainty. A first visit to any circuit compresses the weekend: set-up windows are guesses, tyre behaviour is unknown, and the teams that adapt quickest on Friday tend to define Sunday. Mercedes has the momentum and, on current form, the car to beat. On a track with no history, that is the closest thing to a prediction anyone should offer.
