Formula 1 / Madrid / Hypertrack™ / Original circuit author
MADRINGCircuit Design by Dromo.
Dromo won IFEMA MADRID’s public design tender, authored the Hypertrack™ circuit and event plan, led the technical pathway to the construction licence, and followed the project through the first six months of construction.
Madrid / Formula 1 / Urban delivery
A Grand Prix inside a major European capital.
The City of Madrid describes MADRING as making Madrid the only major European capital to host a Formula 1 Grand Prix on an urban circuit. That distinction concentrates circuit performance, public transport, neighbourhood interfaces, aviation, highways, exhibition operations, emergency planning and environmental control inside one project boundary.
This is why the circuit cannot be understood as an isolated layout. Its design value lies in making Formula 1 geometry, an operating event and a highly constrained city setting work as one authorisable system.
Public launch / IFEMA MADRID / 23 January 2024
The first Dromo anteproyecto made the ten-season proposition visible.
Formula 1, IFEMA MADRID and the Madrid institutions publicly presented the new Spanish Grand Prix at IFEMA on 23 January 2024, confirming the agreement for ten seasons from 2026 to 2035. The announcement brought the first Dromo anteproyecto into the public domain as the project platform for a new kind of capital-city event.
The concept material shown here belongs to Dromo’s subsequent English design presentation of 8 May 2024. It develops the public proposition through urban integration, circuit identity, venue programme, spectator capacity and the covered-paddock relationship with IFEMA.
The record, stated clearly
Not an isolated drawing. The authored project platform.
Dromo entered the project by winning IFEMA MADRID’s competitive public tender, Exp. 22/173. The award was communicated on 23 February 2023 after Dromo competed against other specialist circuit designers.
The assignment moved from technical concept and masterplan through layout development, three-dimensional track geometry, simulation, safety systems, administrative documentation, event planning and coordination with the wider venue. The work connected permanent circuit sections, public-road interfaces, the paddock environment, temporary infrastructure and the future operation of a Formula 1 event.
The parties’ agreements distinguish Dromo’s retained proprietary technical project materials from the circuit imagery, representations and anteproyecto documentation whose rights were transferred to IFEMA MADRID.
Project relationship / 4 December 2024
The services contract concluded. The IP licence remains in force.
Jarno Zaffelli and Luis García Abad at the signing on 4 December 2024, during the project’s contractual delivery phase.
The services contract subsequently concluded. That conclusion is distinct from the separate licence governing use of Dromo’s circuit-design intellectual property, which remains in force.
Public presentation
The circuit was conceived as a masterplan.
The racing line was only one layer. Dromo developed a coordinated system of circuit geometry, safety, buildings, access, event movement and operational interfaces within an active exhibition and urban-development district.
Competitive appointment
Dromo wins IFEMA’s public tender 22/173 against competing specialist practices.
Defined project rights
The executed licence distinguishes Dromo’s retained proprietary technical IP from the project imagery and anteproyecto rights held by IFEMA MADRID.
Event plan
Dromo documents the spectator, grandstand, hospitality, public-flow and operating-venue logic.
Final built layout
The definitive layout file is generated, delivered and instructed for submission to the sporting authorities.
Construction licence
The administrative and technical pathway reaches the licence that enables construction.
First six months
Dromo follows the translation of design intent into built geometry during the opening works.
Administrative delivery
Making the circuit authorisable was part of the design.
Dromo was appointed to develop and coordinate the technical documentation required for the temporary construction and event-activity licensing pathway. This was not a routine permit package: it had to reconcile an active exhibition campus, public roads, the M-11 interfaces, rail and aviation stakeholders, mobility, emergency response, water, drainage, air quality, noise, landscape, utilities and Formula 1 safety requirements.
The circuit’s relationship with Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport was treated as a live project constraint. Dromo followed the applicable aeronautical and regulatory interfaces, airport safeguarding and airspace limitations affecting construction planning and temporary works, integrating them into the licensing and delivery process.
The official environmental procedure alone records consultation with 26 public bodies and technical units across the City of Madrid, the Community of Madrid and the Spanish State, alongside interested parties and neighbourhood or environmental associations. The process required successive technical responses, complementary studies and design revisions.
That Dromo-led technical pathway reached its decisive result on 24 April 2025, when Madrid issued the construction licence.
Environmental and acoustic evidence
The public file records a project-specific technical pathway.
The public acoustic annex identifies Dromo as the author of the study and records the use of SoundPLANnoise 9.0, the CNOSSOS-EU:2021 propagation framework and Dromo’s INCUDINE moving-source model. It describes a complete three-dimensional context, speed-dependent vehicle paths and validation work using track measurements at Monaco and an event model at Paul Ricard.
The official SEA 67/24 environmental decision then places the project within a conditional monitoring and compliance framework. It requires event-by-event external-noise checks, a complaints and noise-minimisation plan, environmental and incident registers, periodic compliance reporting and accredited external noise controls.
Critical submissions contained in the public administrative file are treated as stakeholder evidence, not as adopted technical findings. Together, the record demonstrates the level of scrutiny required to move an urban Formula 1 project from proposal to authorisation.
Explore Dromo’s acoustic modelling capability · Environmental impact assessment
Event plan / from 15 August 2024
The circuit and the Formula 1 event were designed as one system.
Dromo developed the event plan from the public and operational perspective: grandstands, hospitality, spectator flows, experience clusters, service interfaces and the spatial logic required to evolve the facility from a construction project into an operating Formula 1 venue.
This work informed the final circuit geometry rather than sitting downstream from it. On 31 October 2024 Dromo generated and delivered the definitive layout file—the design subsequently translated into construction.
Construction follow-through
Design intent carried into physical works.
Dromo remained engaged through the first six months of construction, following how the masterplan and circuit geometry were translated into earthworks, levels, structures, paved alignments and interfaces with the surrounding venue.
This phase matters because a circuit is not preserved by centreline coordinates alone. Banking transitions, crossfalls, drainage logic, safety relationships, walls, access and construction tolerances must continue to work as one system.
3D civil design / Site translation
The first earthworks made La Monumental’s geometry legible on site.
Ing. Federico Vennarucci, Dromo Principal 3D Civil Designer, reviews the opening formation works for La Monumental. At this stage the authored three-dimensional model begins to appear at full scale: horizontal alignment, banking development, levels and transitions must remain coherent as excavation and formation progress.
The adjacent construction view records the first physical definition of the banked sequence before pavement and surface layers. These are Dromo project-archive photographs from the period in which the design team followed the first six months of construction.
Paving milestone / construction
The authored geometry became visible at full scale.
This image records completion of the circuit-paving phase: a material milestone in translating the coordinated geometry into the built venue.
It does not represent completion of every construction or event-readiness package. Dromo’s construction-phase engagement remained limited to the first six months of works.
La Monumental
A signature geometry made buildable.
La Monumental expresses the central design ambition: a recognisable Formula 1 sequence created through speed, scale, banking and urban identity. Its value lies not only in the visual idea, but in the geometric and construction definition required to make that idea perform.
Discover why La Monumental exists →
Hypertrack™ / A Dromo concept
MADRING moves beyond conventional circuit geometry.
Hypertrack™ is the term coined by Dromo for circuits, proving grounds and performance facilities where extreme geometry, technology, user experience and integration are engineered as one validated system. At MADRING, La Monumental is a clear expression of that direction: its banking and transitions were developed through vehicle dynamics, safety, drainage, construction geometry and spectator experience—not as a decorative form.
Moving beyond the conventional geometric assumptions generally covered by standard guidance does not mean moving outside regulation. Every Hypertrack™ application remains subject to project-specific simulation, structural and vehicle-dynamics analysis, safety validation and the applicable FIA homologation or approval process.
Design identity in the emerging venue
The original intent remains visible.
The latest project imagery shows the contrast Dromo sought from the outset: permanent and urban sections, close infrastructure interfaces, strong visual identity and a signature banked sequence.
Dromo’s construction-phase engagement covered the first six months of works. Subsequent construction delivery, event activation and operations are separate project phases and are not presented here as an extension of that appointment.
The lap as design evidence
From masterplan to driver experience.
The onboard design study connects the masterplan to the sequence perceived from the cockpit: approach speeds, compression, openness, walls, banking and the rhythm between permanent and urban sections.
First Formula 1 running / 9 July 2026
The authored geometry met a real Formula 1 car.
Ferrari became the first Formula 1 team to run at MADRING on 9 July 2026. Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc completed an FIA-regulated Filming Day, limited to 200 kilometres in total and 100 kilometres per driver on Pirelli demonstration tyres.
The session was the circuit’s first official Formula 1 test in operating conditions. It exercised the asphalt, kerbs, run-off areas, safety procedures, communications and permanent infrastructure, converting the project’s design evidence into its first full-scale Formula 1 running.
Charles Leclerc onboard · real filming-day footage · third-party upload
Ferrari onboard · real filming-day footage · third-party upload
Dromo project teamJarno Zaffelli · Francesco Grana · Federico Vennarucci · Deborah Gavioli · Elisabetta Maria Terenziani · Simone Botti · Tatiana Rota
Physical worksUTE ACCIONA EIFFAGE. Construction imagery is used as public visual evidence of project progress; it is not presented as Dromo photography.
Image credits
- Source: MADRING / IFEMA MADRID. Image rights remain with the applicable rights holder. · Source
- © Dromo project archive. · Dromo project archive
- © Dromo. · Dromo Keynote JZ v16 ENG, 8 May 2024
- © Dromo / project archive. · Dromo project archive
