Forty five years is a ridiculous amount of time to wait for a race.
The last time Formula 1 raced in Madrid was 1981, when Gilles Villeneuve won at the Circuito del Jarama. This weekend, F1 finally returned to the capital at the brand new Madring. That is your history lesson done, because honestly, the comeback made just as much sense away from the circuit as it did on it.
F1 invited us out to Madrid for the return and, uniquely, our first stop was not the track. It was a coffee shop. On Friday morning, F1 Paddock Club linked with The Coffee Party and took over Acid Bakehouse. There was coffee, music, food, a guest DJ and a packed room starting race weekend at a bakery instead of a bar. People were dancing before lunch with pastries in hand, which sounds slightly unserious until you are actually there and realise everyone is having a very good time.
The Coffee Party started in Toronto in late 2024 with a simple idea: take the music, people and energy of going out, move it to the daytime and make alcohol optional rather than the entire point. Since then, it has travelled to cities including New York, Miami and Barcelona, landing somewhere between a club night, coffee run and community event. It is easy to see why the idea has caught on. People still want to dance, meet someone new and be around each other, they just do not always want to lose the following day in the process. You can have a proper time and still leave with your Saturday intact. Fair enough, really.
Once you were inside Acid Bakehouse, the F1 connection made sense too. Formula 1 has become very good at understanding that the sport is much bigger than what happens on the track. Race weekend now includes the clothes, music, restaurants, parties, group chats and every plan people make around the actual race. That does not take anything away from the sport. It simply gives more people a way into it. Madrid felt like the perfect city for that approach because this was never going to be a quiet return. After 45 years away, F1 did not arrive with a new circuit and expect everyone to wait for Sunday. You could feel it across the city before a car had even crossed the starting line.
That energy also carried into F1’s collaboration with Pompeii, a fashion brand born in Madrid. The collection takes the style around motorsport and turns it into clothes that make sense away from the paddock, avoiding the kind of merchandise you buy at a race and never wear again. The local connection is what makes it work. Pompeii started in Madrid in 2014 with four university friends, some sneakers and a very online approach to building a brand. Twelve years later, they were creating the official collection for Formula 1’s return to their city. A pretty good full circle moment.
There was a launch at Meliá Palacio de los Duques with an F1 show car, the Coffee Party morning at Acid Bakehouse and a takeover of Pompeii’s flagship filled with archive photography and footage from the sport’s history. It meant you could experience the comeback without ever entering a grandstand. You could grab a coffee, see the archive, try on the collection or simply walk around Madrid and know something big was happening.
That was the real story of Formula 1 returning to the city. When the sport last raced here in 1981, fashion, music and motorsport existed in much more separate worlds. Now a Grand Prix can move through an entire city before most people have even watched qualifying.
By Sunday, the cars had raced through Madrid again and Kimi Antonelli had taken the win. But after 45 years away, Madrid did not only get a race back. It got a completely new version of race weekend.
