F1 raced at a brand new venue last weekend, and Franco delivered an excellent drive to finish seventh and score six points for the team. Here’s our recap of everything that happened at the Madring

Spirits in the team were high when we touched down in Madrid, fresh from an eventful weekend at Monza. This was Formula One’s first-ever visit to the new, 5.4km Madring, with its hybrid street/purpose-built circuit characteristics — and ‘monumental’ banked Turn 12 corner — located close to the airport on the outskirts of the Spanish capital. And we were intrigued to see how the new Spanish Grand Prix weekend would turn out.

But before the drivers were out on track, there was plenty going on in Madrid, with a special drive organised with Alpine Cars ambassador, and now the French national football manager, Zinedine Zidane at the wheel of the A390 GT.

‘Zizou’ visited us for race day too and he wasn’t the only famous sporting star to join us over the weekend. Pierre also got the chance to chat with American, gold-medal winning skier Bode Miller, while team investor and Real Madrid defender Trent Alexander-Arnold also visited us on race day.

A home-from-home race

When Franco first moved from Argentina to race in Europe, he chose Madrid as his base. And with five daily flights to Buenos Aires, there was no shortage of Franco fans who had made the trip to Spain last weekend, with many of them coming to the fan forum on Saturday morning.

“I’m really excited to be back here in Madrid and for the second race of the year in Spain, and the city does feel like the closest to home,” said Franco in Thursday’s official FIA Drivers’ Press Conference. “To be racing here in Formula 1 is a dream come true and it’s very good for the sport to have another big city, like Madrid, on the calendar.”

Familiarisation with a new track

The first laps on a new circuit are not the most representative, as they are ‘green’ due to how dusty a new, ‘un-rubbered’ in track tends to be. So track evolution was high at Madring as more rubber was laid down every session. It helped that there was plenty of running from the FIA Formula 2 and FIA Formula 3 support races, and the difference in lap time between Franco’s fastest time in FP2, a 1m35.886s, and his best qualifying time was 2.983 seconds.

For that reason, we waited 15 minutes or so before venturing out on track for FP1. And as work on the simulator had proved, for a single-car run, the new 22-turn Madring was a fun track to drive around. Throughout the grid, the general consensus was positive, and the flat-out blast around the banking of La Monumental was fun — even if Franco did need to show off his excellent reactions at 255kph when he got a slight snap of oversteer mid-corner in qualifying!

“It’s always a nice challenge coming to a new circuit and seeing it at speed for the first time,” said Pierre. “I must say, I really loved the track. It’s very exciting, it’s high-speed and gives you a real adrenaline rush lap after lap. The walls come at you quite quickly, so you have to be very precise with lines and really commit to the corners throughout the whole lap.”

Finding the limits

At the end of the first day of running, both drivers had completed a total of 90 laps, which was just short of 500km. The hot conditions and high loads on the car, in combination with the smooth track surface, did initially cause some graining on the tyres, but as the grip levels rose, any fears about wear vanished, leaving the tyres pretty robust by Sunday.

All weekend, temperatures were hot in Madrid, with track temperatures regularly nudging north of 50° C. And while the rear-limited characteristics of the Madring didn’t suit the A526 as much as Monza did, work continued late into Friday in an attempt to build on the P11 for Pierre and P15 for Franco in FP2.

After two relatively trouble-free sessions in F1, the confines of the new Madrid circuit certainly caught out drivers in the supporting F2 and F3 sessions, but credit to Alpine Academy driver Alex Dunne, who secured an excellent front-row place on the F2 Feature Race starting grid.

Dunne enjoyed points in the Sprint on Saturday, finishing seventh after starting ninth, and expertly held on to his second-place spot in the Feature Race — as well as setting the fastest lap — to round off an excellent weekend in Spain. Championship contender Gabriele Mini scored points over his rivals with his own seventh place on Sunday morning.

Chasing lap time

A compromised FP3 session was supplemented with a few minutes of extra track time after barrier repairs at the final corner took longer than expected following a crash. Franco finished the final practice just outside the top ten, and was hopeful of a good result going into qualifying.

And so it proved. As he built up more confidence throughout the qualifying sessions, Franco reached Q3 and set a time good enough for ninth on the grid, with his reaction on team radio proof of his adrenaline: “There you ******* go!!! Come on! Vamos! Hehe. Come on, what a lap.”

Taking a gamble

After facing issues with grip in qualifying, Pierre started the Spanish GP in 14th and, with the overtaking proving difficult at this track, the team rolled the dice to try something different to everyone else. As a result, he started on hards and didn’t pit when an early Virtual Safety Car was deployed. It elevated him up the order and, for much of the race, Pierre was running in eighth.

The team held out for as long as they could, and the potential for a Safety Car or even a red flag was high. But ultimately, it didn’t materialise and Pierre stopped heading into the final lap, dropping to 12th.

Meanwhile, Franco made a fast start off the line to gain positions from his P9 starting position. He pitted during the early VSC, swapping his mediums for new hard tyres. Despite dropping behind the drivers that didn’t stop, Franco managed his long stint to the flag, catching and passing the Audi of Bortoleto and defending well despite an intense challenge behind from Piastri in the McLaren.

Franco came home seventh to score six points for the team and even got the chance to wave an Argentinian flag on the cool-down lap, which a marshal handed him.

Afterwards Franco said that his Spanish GP was his “best weekend in terms of execution this year,” while Flavio Briatore described Franco’s performance as “mega”. In all, the past fortnight has yielded a decent haul of points as the updates on the A526 have been working well.

We’ll regroup at Enstone this week before flying out for the second half of the season, starting with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix next week.