Streets of rage as F1 keeps doubling down

WHAT’S rare is wonderful. Trouble is what was once rare is now ten-a-penny. The F1 calendar is now just lousy with street circuits, almost one third of the season was held on street circuits last year, with plans afoot to add more into the future, starting in 2026 with Madrid joining the circus.

The collective groan from F1 fans on social media – maybe not the most representative of spaces admittedly – to the announcement of the event in the Spanish capital told its own story. It’s just too much of a mediocre thing.

The tracks are rarely anything much to write home about. Even the much-hyped Los Vegas Grand Prix didn’t look all that on TV – which is how the vast majority of fans engage with the sport – with the usual barriers and catch proof fences the dominant visual. Honestly it could have been anywhere in the world, save for the occasional establishing shot of the famous strip. To be fair to Vegas, it actually threw up one of the races of the season. For the most part, though, racing on street tracks isn’t that exciting.

The tracks, by necessity, are compromised, having to fit around what infrastructure is already in place for the most part. Ninety degree corner after ninety degree corner, point and squirt on the accelerator, with the occasional hyper long-straight thrown-in for artificial DRS over-takes. Uninspiring.

From F1’s point of view we can kind of see the attraction with all this take of destination cities and ease of access for fans, and true enough it’ll be easier to get to this new Madrid track than to, say, Spa-Francorchamps deep in the Ardennes.

Still if you’re asking the average F1 fan where they’d prefer to watch racing, we’d be fairly confident that Spa, with its wonderfully challenging series of turns, organically flowing through the Belgian countryside, would easily win out.

Instead, though, there’s a real threat to the continuance of racing in Spa, while there’s an ever increasing homogeneity elsewhere. True there are financial considerations to take into account – these promoters are putting up big money – but maybe it’s a penny wise and a pound foolish.

F1 is, as we’ve said, a television sport, if it looks dull and uninspiring through that medium, that’s going to hurt the bottom line sooner rather than later, and without wanting to pre-judge too much, this Madrid track really isn’t looking promising.

Sochi with sangria might be the most charitable way of describing the renders released by F1, with the bulk of the circuit snaking around the the IFEMA fairgrounds and convention centre. Now if there’s not a sentence to get the blood pumping, we don’t know what to say to you.

None of these new street circuits we don’t think will ever be as iconic or beloved as the more traditional circuits, upon which the sport was built. Singapore, to be fair, has become something of a modern classic, for the most part though it’s Sochis and Miamis.

The sad thing about it is that at this rate we’re not going to see a new custom-built facility opened possibly ever again (acknowledging how expensive they can be). No new Suzukas, no new Sepangs, just more races in these destination cities with their cookie-cutter street tracks.

Little wonder the fans are cranky.