Madring gives F1 a blind date with 'Monumental' mayhem

MADRID, Sept 10 : Formula One rolls into Madrid this weekend for a first look at the Madring, a new Spanish Grand Prix venue with a banked beast of a corner and enough unknowns to have drivers reaching for the word of the day: challenging.

Spain is hosting two races this season, with Madrid's street circuit around the IFEMA exhibition centre following Barcelona's Catalunya Grand Prix on the calendar. The Madring is the first new circuit since Las Vegas three years ago and brings down the curtain on the regular European leg of the season.

The Madring's signature flourish comes at Turn 12, where "La Monumental" slings the cars around a long, banked arc before spitting them over a crest, leaving drivers momentarily aiming at grandstands built to hold up to 45,000 fans — and the blue sky — rather than tarmac. 

Until now, most of the field have only met the circuit in the simulator, leaving teams to untangle set-ups and racing lines on a layout whose pecking order remains guesswork.

"It looks different. It looks that the track has character, that is charismatic, with a lot of different kinds of corners," Madrid-born Williams driver Carlos Sainz, an ambassador for the track, told a press conference on Thursday.

"At least we can take that away, that that is going to be a different track to what we're used to."

Sainz has driven a few laps in a road car on an unfinished version of the track, but said that was "nowhere as representative as the laps that I did in the simulator".

Ferrari pair Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton are the only other drivers with some prior experience of the Madring after driving there during a filming day in July, when the circuit was still more building site than Grand Prix theatre.

Hamilton, the seven-times