The new Madring in Madrid has finally felt a Formula 1 car, and the way it happened has set tongues wagging. Ferrari got there first — Charles Leclerc in the morning, Lewis Hamilton in the afternoon — and rivals are left arguing about whether it was shrewd or sharp practice.
The pair covered up to 200km in the SF-26 as a filming day: promotional Pirelli tyres, capped mileage, and one of the two promo events every team is permitted each year. Ferrari spent its first on that allowance at Monza back in April.
An F1 name had touched the circuit before — Carlos Sainz, Madrid-born and an ambassador for the venue, took the first laps in May. But that was a road car. A grand prix machine had never run there until Thursday.
That is the crux. The Testing of Previous Cars rules are designed to stop teams harvesting data at an unfamiliar track before the race, yet a promotional filming day sidesteps them. Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren will meet the Madring for the first time on Spanish Grand Prix weekend, on September 13. Ferrari's drivers already know where to brake, how the kerbs bite and how the banked La Monumental turn loads the car.
Opinions on the value split neatly. Motorsport.com and GPblog cast it as a genuine head start. The Race struck a cooler note, with Jon Noble describing the run as "hugely valuable" for reading the surface and layout while stressing that filming-day speeds sit well short of race pace — an administrative edge more than a decisive one. AutoRacing1 was blunter, framing it as the FIA waving through an unfair advantage.
The money question bites hardest. Reports suggested Madring's invitation came with the circuit covering Ferrari's costs — no small thing under a budget cap where savings in one place free up spending in another. Ferrari has rejected any notion that the venue is bankrolling the day, aware of the storm it would cause among rivals already muttering out of earshot.
The circuit's organisers, who got the place finished with little room to spare, hit back at the sniping. "Getting here hasn't been easy. We've read and heard many biased news stories," said IFEMA Madrid president Jose Vicente de los Mozos. Spanish Grand Prix communications chief Nira Juanco treated the day as proof of concept: "A year and a half ago we announced an ambition, a challenge, something many considered impossible."
Ferrari played it breezy, posting that its drivers were "lapping up that Spanish sun during filming day."
Nothing stops another team booking its own filming day at the Madring. What none of them has is the promoter's invitation to christen it — and until that changes, the early look, modest mileage and all, belongs to Ferrari.
