Ferrari's SF-26 to become first F1 car to run on Madrid's Madring circuit

Ferrari will become the first Formula 1 team to run a car at Madrid’s new Madring street circuit, with a filming day scheduled for Thursday ahead of the venue’s inaugural Spanish Grand Prix on 11-13 September.

The session will see the SF-26 complete up to 200km of running split between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc — the maximum permitted under F1’s filming day regulations, which restrict such outings to promotional activities rather than full-scale testing.

The circuit itself, a 5.416km layout featuring 22 corners and a long banked section, is complete, though grandstand construction and paddock infrastructure work were still ongoing as recently as a few days ago. Ferrari’s presence will serve a dual purpose: the Scuderia gains early track knowledge of a venue no F1 car has previously visited, while Madring organisers get a critical operational rehearsal with a live Formula 1 car on site.

The speed with which Ferrari arranged the outing is notable given the circuit only recently cleared its construction phase. For event organisers, having a team of Ferrari’s logistical scale put the facility through its paces before the full F1 paddock arrives in September is a significant milestone in the venue’s readiness.

The timing also carries a competitive dimension. Ferrari arrives at the Madring on the back of its strongest run of the 2026 season. Leclerc took victory at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix last weekend, following Hamilton’s win in Barcelona — two victories in three rounds that have lifted the Scuderia to second in the constructors’ championship. They trail Mercedes by 78 points, with Hamilton third and Leclerc fourth in the drivers’ standings.

The Madrid street circuit replaces Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya as the home of the Spanish Grand Prix, a switch that leaves every team facing an unknown quantity when the calendar reaches Spain in September. Ferrari’s filming day means it will arrive with at least some first-hand data on a track that, until Thursday, existed only in simulations and engineering drawings for the entire grid.