MADRID, 24 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Madrid City Council has spent “many months” from the Urban Development area studying the “feasibility” of the project to host a Grand Prix in the Formula 1 World Cup at Ifema Madrid “in economic and political terms to make the decision.”
“We have been looking at the viability of the project for many months, if possible. Then there is the decision of Ifema in economic and political terms to make the decision,” said the delegate of the Urban Development area of the consistory, Mariano Fuentes, at a breakfast informative that has starred in Executive Forum.
Fuentes explained that it is an initiative “that Ifema Madrid is discussing with the International Automobile Federation (FIA)” and remarked that “every important project goes through Urbanism”.
Last September, the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, acknowledged contacts between the City Council and the Community with the organizers of the Formula 1 World Cup, but described it as “something very preliminary” that was done to “see if there is a possibility ” that the capital of Spain hosts a Grand Prix.
“It is true that what we are doing from the Community and the City Council together with Ifema is to see if the possibility exists. Formula 1 is one of the few major international events that Madrid has never hosted and as such it is an issue that should be explored, but it is something still very preliminary”, declared Almeida then.
That same month, the regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, also confessed to being “in talks” to bring a Formula 1 Grand Prix to the Madrid Jarama Circuit, located in San Sebastián de los Reyes and where the Spanish GP of 1981.
He indicated then that what they wanted is to “talk to all the public and private institutions that are related to this circuit, with these contests, so that it is also in Madrid” because landing in the region would be “a success.”
But to organize a test within the F-1 World Championship it is essential that the track has the FIA Grade 1. This homologation implies meeting a series of standards in medical infrastructure, the ‘paddock’, the boxes, track measurements, among other elements.
Thus, Ifema and the local and regional political authorities would be negotiating with the FIA the organization of a GP in an urban circuit in the enclosure with indoor and outdoor possibilities, and with 13 pavilions that offer some 200,000 square meters. This would allow Madrid to shine again with the ‘Great Circus’, where the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, which does have that indispensable Grade 1, already hosts the Spanish Grand Prix.