La Monumental: F1’s Next Great Corner in Madrid
Formula 1 has a new stage, and it is not easing its way into the spotlight. The championship’s long‑running Spanish Grand Prix has packed its bags and left Barcelona for Madrid, where a fresh, hybrid-style circuit — the Madring — is preparing to introduce itself with a statement turn.
Not a chicane. Not a fiddly complex. A corner.
La Monumental.
A new home, a new identity
Madrid now holds the keys to the Spanish Grand Prix until 2035, and the Madring is no temporary experiment. The layout stitches together public roads with sections of permanent track, shifting in character from tight, city-style confines to more open, flowing racing lines.
It runs to 22 corners, but one dominates the conversation before a single grand prix lap has been completed.
Turn 12.
La Monumental is a long, sweeping, banked hairpin, a 270‑degree arc that wraps around on itself and threatens to redefine what an F1 corner can be at high speed. The banking will rise to 13.5 degrees — less than Zandvoort’s dramatic 18, but with a crucial difference: drivers are expected to attack it far faster.
This is not a slow, lumbering bowl. It is designed to be taken on the edge.
Williams driver Carlos Sainz, one of Madrid’s own, has already sampled the circuit in a Ford Mustang GT. Even in a road-based machine, the intent of the corner was obvious.
“My feeling is the corner is going to be flat out the whole way, and it's going to create an overtaking opportunity into the next tight left,” he said after his run. The tone was part excitement, part warning.
He could already see the games that will be played on that banking.
“The banking will allow you to maybe position the car higher up or lower down if you want to get clean air to follow. But if it's easy flat, then it will also be a corner where if you stay tight, you will produce quite a bit of slipstream, like you see in Zandvoort.”
In other words, drivers will not just survive La Monumental. They will use it.
Fans can expect cars scattered across the width of the track, hunting for grip, airflow and a tow, all while committed at full throttle. The payoff comes immediately: a tight left-hander at the exit, a natural braking zone for lunges set up by the slipstream.
If the theory holds, this single corner could become the visual and strategic heartbeat of the Madring.
Antonelli in control, Piastri chasing
The new circuit arrives at a pivotal point in the season. Mercedes prodigy Kimi Antonelli heads to Madrid with a commanding 66‑point lead in the drivers’ standings over teammate George Russell, a cushion he built with a stunning victory in Italy last Sunday.
He started 19th on the grid at Monza. He finished first.
Drives like that turn points leads into psychological advantages. Antonelli sits on 267 points, Russell on 201. Behind them, Lewis Hamilton, now in Ferrari red, holds third on 191, with Lando Norris (171) and Charles Leclerc (155) forming a tightly packed chasing group.
Max Verstappen, on 127 for Red Bull, finds himself in the unusual position of looking up at that cluster. Oscar Piastri, seventh in the standings on 116, continues to grind out results for McLaren; his fifth place in Italy kept him in the conversation, even if Antonelli has long since disappeared over the horizon in the title race.
The rest of the order tells its own story. Isack Hadjar (71) leads the next wave at Red Bull. Liam Lawson has 51 with Racing Bulls/Red Bull, while Pierre Gasly (41) and Arvid Lindblad (29) keep Alpine and Racing Bulls in the points column.
Further down, the margins shrink: Franco Colapinto on 21, Oliver Bearman on 18, Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hülkenberg tied on 10 and 6 for Audi, Sainz and Alex Albon battling at Williams, and Fernando Alonso stuck on three points for Aston Martin in a season that has yet to ignite. Lance Stroll, Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Pérez are still searching for their first point of the year.
Those numbers will matter in Madrid, but the circuit itself may decide who can actually use their car’s strengths. High‑speed commitment through La Monumental, traction out of the tight left that follows, and the balance required on a layout that flickers between street circuit and permanent track will expose any weakness.
When the lights go out
The Spanish Grand Prix will run this Sunday, September 13, under the Madrid night sky. For Australian viewers, the start times stretch across the map: 11pm in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, the ACT and Tasmania; 10:30pm in South Australia and the Northern Territory; 9pm in Western Australia.
ABC Sport will carry a live blog from 9pm AEST, tracking every lap as the Madring stages its first grand prix.
New circuits often need years to earn their place in F1 folklore. Some never quite do. Madrid has chosen a different route, building its identity around one audacious, banked statement of intent.
Soon enough, 20 cars will charge into La Monumental at full speed.
Then we will find out whether this corner is just ambitious design — or the birth of Formula 1’s next great landmark.
