Spanish GP organisers say new Madrid track will be ready despite hurdles

MADRID, June 16 : Formula One's new Spanish Grand Prix circuit held a showy public unveiling on Tuesday with organisers confident all would be ready for the September race in Madrid despite construction being far from finished.

The largest Spanish flag in the country was raised at the first corner before government and circuit officials gave speeches and Williams' F1 driver Carlos Sainz spoke of his hometown excitement.

The 5.47 km Madring, around the IFEMA exhibition centre in the capital's northeast with easy access to public transport and Barajas airport, stretches over two distinct areas and features two long straights and a hallmark 24 per cent banked "Monumental" curve, where cars could hit 340 kph.

"It's a circuit that has a bit of everything: fast, slow, an urban part, a much more open part," said Sainz, a circuit ambassador who has already driven around in a Ford Mustang GT road car. "It's different."

ASPHALT ALREADY DOWN BUT PITLANE A WORK IN PROGRESS 

While the black ribbon of smooth asphalt has been laid, the surroundings are busy with earth-moving equipment in a desert landscape with hundreds of workers preparing an area that will also host the championship's biggest fan zone.

The permanent pitlane garages are still a work in progress and temporary grandstands have yet to be erected while the paddock area remains conceptual.

But Madring's Chief Operations Officer Carlos Jimenez said he was sleeping soundly, despite time constraints and challenging bureaucratic hurdles.

"We are in our 11th month of construction and the permits took 12," he told Reuters. "Now the most complicated part, even apart from the track, has been done. In the south, the track is done ... in the north, the plot of land is going to be finished