Madrid’s Sports Minister pushes for F1’s arrival in the Spanish capital
The future destination of the Spanish Grand Prix remains unclear. El Mundo claims that Madrid will host F1 from 2026, but the FIA denies this rumour, while Madrid's Minister for Sport, Mariano de Paco, advocates an arrival in the country's capital.
A few weeks ago, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo announced that the Spanish Grand Prix was going to leave Catalonia and Barcelona to move to the capital Madrid. However, these rumors were denied a few days later by the FIA.
The governing body of F1 states that the project in Madrid did not pass all the crucial steps before obtaining authorization to host a Grand Prix. According to El Mundo, the semi-urban track would be installed in the Northeast of the city, around the IFEMA conference center.
« We would celebrate Formula 1 a lot in Madrid »
While the arrival of the F1 in Madrid is far from certain, Mariano de Paco, Minister of Culture, Tourism and Sports of the Community of Madrid, granted a lengthy interview to the newspaper AS, published on December 15th, where he expressed his desire to see the Spanish capital host the Formula One cars.
« I’m excited about all of this. When you hold a position like this, you focus on everything that happens during the year and, looking further ahead, on the entire term. We are leaders in basketball, football, paddle tennis… And, of course, we want Formula 1 to be in Madrid as a major sporting event. It also becomes a cultural event, a tourist event, an economic event… The prospects are to continue working on everything we do, like mass sports events, and of course, these major events we were talking about, like F1, and we would greatly celebrate if they were in Madrid, declares Mariano de Paco.
« What we know so far is that we have contacted both the CAM and the town hall for a large-scale sports event, with which both administrations would be delighted to see it take place in Madrid, precisely because it is one of our strategic objectives. These are events that, like Formula 1, transcend the world of sport », continues the minister.
