{"id":34961,"date":"2026-09-14T16:06:49","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T16:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/spanish-grand-prix-madrid-f1-circuit-set-for-changes-after-criticism\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T16:06:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T16:06:49","slug":"spanish-grand-prix-madrid-f1-circuit-set-for-changes-after-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/spanish-grand-prix-madrid-f1-circuit-set-for-changes-after-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish Grand Prix: Madrid F1 circuit set for changes after criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/formula1\/articles\/c5yeln1j175o\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">Race winner Kimi Antonelli<\/a> said: &#8220;It definitely doesn&#8217;t create overtaking opportunities and it doesn&#8217;t push you to try and make a move because 80% of the time you might have a contact.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There are some corners that need to be changed to create more overtaking opportunities because right now, yes, it&#8217;s nice over one lap, but for sure in the race you&#8217;re just stuck behind.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And world champion Norris, who was denied victory for McLaren by the unfortunate timing of a virtual safety car, said: &#8220;There are some obvious changes they should make. They should get rid of [Turns] 18, 19 &#8211; useless. Just have more of a straight into a hairpin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t know how someone looks at this design and goes, &#8216;mint&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of opportunity. They can make it into a track that&#8217;s good for racing, and I&#8217;m excited to come back here next year if they can make these changes because I think it&#8217;s a track that is good fun to drive and it can be a great racetrack.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On social media, F1 fans also criticised access and the facilities, including having to sit on earth trackside, poor visibility, broken facilities and a general lack of readiness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is well known that organisers were up against it in terms of the timeframe to get the track ready for its first event.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The circuit is made up of a combination of roads already in place at Ifema and specific parts of permanent circuit, including the trademark banked corner at Turn 12 known as La Monumental.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Madring managing director Luis Garcia Abad, the former manager of two-time F1 world champion Fernando Alonso, did not respond to requests for comment from BBC Sport on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But after the race he told Autosport: &#8220;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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I really believe that the drivers enjoyed qualifying a lot. But for sure we will try to make an improvement for next year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We have the space, we have a venue, we have the facilities, we have the capacity to do it. I&#8217;m sure that FOM [Formula One Management], FIA and ourselves, we will try. If we can improve something, we will do it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/formula1\/articles\/ckwyzllzdq43o?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Race winner Kimi Antonelli said: &#8220;It definitely doesn&#8217;t create overtaking opportunities and it doesn&#8217;t push you to try and make a move because 80% of the time you might have a contact. &#8220;There are some corners that need to be changed to create more overtaking opportunities because right now, yes, it&#8217;s nice over one lap, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34963,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34961\/revisions\/34963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}