2026 Spanish GP Betting Preview

We did well in Spain, let’s hope for more of the same at the Madring. Check out his 2026 Spanish GP outright betting preview and tips below.

2026 Spanish GP

The Italian GP was a profitable one but could have been so much better. Russell missing out on pole by 0.06 seconds was a killer, and losing out to Antonelli in the race frustrating, but we had four winners at decent odds to show a +7.90 profit, taking the season’s tally to -2.18 points. Sadly, Antonelli’s victory means our championship bets on Russell, Hamilton and Ferrari are all but done for. Russell is now the defacto number 2 driver, while Ferrari has resorted to type and are a bit of a clown show.

The 2026 Spanish GP Track

The busy schedule takes us once again to Spain for the Spanish GP at a brand new circuit, the Madring. It is a street circuit around the IFEMA Exhibition Centre in Madrid. It features 22 corners and is 5.4 km long. It’s a corner dominated track with two straights. It looks to be a busy lap, in much the same way as the Hungaroring and Zandvoort. There are five typical 90 degree street track corners, a couple of chicanes, one long radius banked curve, and a series of faster flowing corners.

It is hard to really say who the track will suit until the cars run on it in anger. How will the power units cope? Is it energy rich, or energy poor, and so on. I watched a little interview with Max Verstappen who was talking about it after running on the Red Bull simulator. He said it was a bit like Jeddah. I think by that, he meant that the track is lined by concrete barriers and has some blind corners.

It certainly doesn’t look like a very forgiving track if you lose control. The chicane at the end of the start finish straight is very Jeddah like but it lacks the long, flat-out sections that we have in Jeddah. It is corner rich like the Hungaroring or Zandvoort but doesn’t flow as well.

Difficult Braking Points

He also said some of the braking points were difficult as they were not in a straight line. It is a track that has corners where the drivers have to break and turn at the same time. He said that accidents were likely, and track evolution would be high. That suggests we might not have a clear picture of the form until after FP3.

Formula 3 took all their cars to the Madring a few weeks ago for a three-day test. It will be the venue for the F3 finale this weekend, and it was an opportunity for the organisers to have an operations check. Hopefully that will have exposed any ‘snags’.

When F1 has gone to new street tracks in the past, there have been problems with things like drain covers coming lose, damaging cars and causing lengthy red flags in practice. Things rarely go entirely to plan.

Hints

The three-day test gave us some hints as what we might get this weekend, with the proviso that F3 cars are not F1 cars, and F3 drivers still have the proverbial ‘L’ plates on.

There are elevation changes and one or two sharp turns come just after the brow of a hump. A sudden brake and turn event. Brake late and you are in the wall, especially when the track is evolving, maybe dusty early on.

It was said that this is a very challenging lap, very hard to find a good rhythm and very physical. Maybe we will see plenty of shunts (as Verstappen mentioned), safety cars and a mixed-up race? I remember the early races at Baku which were chaotic and this might be similar. Or at least they were from the second race there onwards.

F2 Carnage In Bahrain

The first weekend in Baku saw absolute carnage in the F2 support series, and the F1 drivers took note, took things cautiously and it was dull. But after that? It was nuts. Will we see a similar pattern?

The F3 test saw something like 17 red flags across the three days and a lot of repair work for the teams. It was expensive. Formula 1 teams have to pay for any repairs out of their cost capped budget. Spend money fixing bent cars means less to spend on development.

The drivers are aware of that. The top drivers can get away with it, having the odd crash ‘finding the limits’. A midfield driver gets a black mark. The poor drivers get exposed as a cost risk. Some of the drivers will be taking a sensible pill this weekend.

Echoes Of Miami

It is not an out and out street circuit a it uses some purpose built race track, and some of Madrid’s road network. It has echoes of the Miami circuit, minus the really long straight. Ferrari took their car there for a ‘filming day’. That meant using non-competition Pirelli tyres and were not performance laps, but they will have got a taste for the layout and some real time data, but I wouldn’t say it gives them a notable advantage. The track was not even fully complete at that stage.

Obviously, we have no past from to draw upon and this will be a race that most of the betting will be done in qualifying and raceday, after we have seen the cars in free practice, and hopefully learnt who is going well. I have watched some lap simulations and haven’t been able to get a real feel for it. There are lots of corners, it is a very busy lap, it looks very unforgiving, but who it will suit? That is very hard to say.

When just looking at a map, it looked McLaren friendly. The simulations suggested that there are plenty of slow corners and that is not McLarens sweet spot.

Development Wars

I don’t expect much in the way off new upgrades this weekend. The teams have a new track to learn and throwing new parts into the equation wouldn’t be smart, especially with so many walls so close to the track.

The Weather Forecast

Is there any rain on the F1 horizon yet? No. The forecast is for more dry and hot conditions, very much like we had at Monza last weekend. 32 – 33c for all three days, plenty of sunshine and a 0% chance of rain.

2026 Spanish GP: Team-by-Team

Mercedes

Made the most of their power advantage at Monza, with a 1-2 finish, just in the wrong order from our betting point of view. Antonelli came from 19th place to win the race, but he did have things fall in his favour.

It was a predictable fast start for Antonelli making up five places in the opening laps. When Leclerc’s crash brought out the red flag, Antonelli was able to change his strategy. Instead of going for a long first stint on the hards, he switched to a new set of mediums and hoped to make them last until the end of the race, or to be able to take advantage of another safety car.

He got the latter and was one of just five drivers to pit for new rubber before the brief VSC ended. Russell stayed out on his old hard tyres and it was a matter of time before Antonelli caught and passed his teammate, which he did with five laps to go. He had a brief off to give Russell a slight lead, but the Italian quickly caught and passed Russell.

Pulling Clear

Antonelli is now 66 points clear of Russell and 76 ahead of Hamilton. He would need to get very unlucky to not win the Championship from there. Russell had looked to be getting his mojo back after the summer break, but he knew his dream of becoming world champion ended with Antonelli’s win.

For this weekend, Mercedes are likely to face stiffer competition from McLaren in particular. This doesn’t look like a power circuit and Mercedes is not the best car on the twistier tracks like this.

Ferrari 

It was all a bit of a shambles for Ferrari’s home race. Their two drivers couldn’t bring themselves to help each other in qualifying and had a coming together on the first lap, costing Hamilton a handful of places. Leclerc crashed out on lap 4 and Hamilton was left to bring his Ferrari home in 6th place.

Their upgraded power unit was an improvement but still leaves them behind the Red Bulls and Mercedes powered cars. From winning the Barcelona and British GPs, Ferrari have got just one podium in the last four races. The two drivers are not getting on and it is turning out to be another disappointing season. They look to be capable of top six finishes, but podiums are going to be harder to get.

Return to Small Turbo?

This track may have suited their old power unit a bit better than with their new one. With lots of corners and stop, go sections, the old small turbo would have been handy for traction and acceleration. Maybe they can go back to it?

It is fair to say that Ferrari are in a bit of a fug. Things looked good after the Spanish upgrade, but they have regressed and now have two drivers who are actively working against each other, trying to establish a dominance neither have. The team lack a real leader on, or off the track and things are on the slide. If it can go wrong, it will.

McLaren 

Finishing 4th and 5th wasn’t a bad result on a Monza circuit that was not well suited to the McLaren. A return to a more corner dominated track will be more to their liking. The straights here do not seem too long, there are some high-speed corners on which they will dominate, but there are quite a few slow corners which their car still hates.

I would say that the shorter wheelbase and shorter gear ratios will be well suited to the nature of the track. I can’t say that they will be back to the kind of form that they had in Hungary and the Netherlands, but it all depends on whether the strong parts of the track for them, outweigh the weak parts. I’m leaning towards a more positive outcome for them.

Red Bull 

In Max’s little interview, he said he didn’t know how the Red Bull would go here. That is fair comment as they rarely know how it is going to go anywhere. But we do know that they are good at setting up a car for the race, or that Verstappen can drive around problems better than anybody else. He is picking up podiums on a regular basis and who knows, he might win a race before the end of the season. What I would say, is that as a team, it is best to leave it until raceday before backing them.

One of the F3 drivers said that riding the kerbs here is difficult, and Verstappen was very unhappy about how poorly the Red Bull handled the kerbs at Monza. That may make a qualifying lap hard for Verstappen to execute, so maybe he is one to oppose on Saturday. To get a quick lap, you need to attack the kerbs, and if your car is unstable doing that, a wall is waiting in a few places. Back off, and you set a slow time.

Isack Hadjar is still not fit to race, and Liam Lawson is stuck with them for another week. He had a horrible Monza weekend and it is hard to get to excited about his chances.

Racing Bulls 

Got back to double points finishes at Monza. Lindblad was strong all weekend and Tsunoda managed to squeak a point (subject to an appeal by Audi). Their car looks capable of scoring points anywhere and Lindblad at least should be capable of doing so again.

Alpine 

Got a kick in the nuts before the Monza weekend after the FIA upheld the appeal against Gasly’s podium in Monaco. That was fifteen points lost before a wheel was turned. However, a shock pole for Gasly and a 7th and 9th place finish in the race was the tonic they needed.

The team have been galvanized by the ruling made against them, and their upgraded car looks more competitive. They will be in the mix for more points this weekend. Colapinto was a former resident in Barcelona so he is looking forward to a sort of home coming.

Haas 

Their pointless streak now extends to seven races. That despite an upgraded car in Italy, and the new PU on Ocon’s car. The drivers said it was a success, despite them finishing 15th and 16th. The team said that the nature of the circuit didn’t help, but that they were expecting to be more competitive on more ‘normal’ types of track.

Monza is a real outlier, and not a great place to measure an upgrade, so this will be more of an acid test for them. Only Ocon had the upgraded Ferrari PU, as Ferrari didn’t have enough new units to go round. It is unclear whether both drivers will have it this weekend, but it was hardly a game changer in any case.

Audi 

Their lack of straight-line performance was going to make Monza a difficult venue for Audi and so it proved. They were outperformed by Racing Bulls and Alpine, but with this track looking less power sensitive, I would expect them to be back in the very competitive scrap for the minor points.

Williams

Sainz’ 13th place was their best result since the Barcelona GP (12th). This is another home race for Sainz, but if he could finish 12th here, I would be amazed. Sainz said the Monza performance was the absolute best result they could have got. They are hanging on for the Azerbaijan GP in two weeks’ time to finally get the B spec upgrade.

Aston Martin 

The power sensitive track in Italy last weekend was exactly what the upgraded Aston and the new Honda PU didn’t need. And neither driver was classified. They will go better here but they still need a big dollop of luck to get a sniff of points, but Alonso can take any chance that come his way.

Cadillac 

A brand-new track is a level playing field for all the teams says new boss Marcin Budkowski. Yeah…..but the shit cars will be at the back, as usual, and that means Cadillac. However, there might be a small chance of something good here for Cadillac.

Sergio Perez is a street track specialist so maybe a tough, challenging layout will bring out the best in him, but how far that would get him in the worst car? He very nearly scored a point in Monaco, having crossed the line in 10th place. However, he got a 10 second penalty for being out of position at the standing restart following the red flag.

Perez has been absolutely mustard in Baku, so he is one to watch here, but he is driving the slowest car. The small chance is that he is still there at the end of a high attrition race, and with a heap of luck, he might get that point that was snatched from him at Monaco.

2026 Spanish GP Summary

A brand-new track is a step into the unknown. It has echoes of some tracks we race on, and some we are already used to, like Sochi. However, it is hard to say who will be hot and who will not. That’s not exactly true of course. Cadillac, Aston Martin and Williams will be making up the numbers. Mercedes and McLaren look the most likely to be the winners, with Ferrari and Red Bull hoping for a podium. The midfield battle will be fierce and perhaps harder to predict than ever.

2026 Spanish GP Selections

A brand-new track will be interesting, but is not great for ante-post betting. My gut feeling from looking at the track is that it might give McLaren the best shot. Lots of corners will suit, so long as there are enough medium to fast ones, and few slow ones. Looking at the simulation suggests that it won’t be as well suited as Zandvoort.

As such this is not a race to going into with all guns blazing, rather one to watch and learn, before placing any proper bets.

I was considering a bet for Lando Norris to win the race. He is a 4.60 shot, which is a tempting price, but I need to see how their car copes with the slower corners here. I would be happier taking a shorter price, but with a better idea of the potential form.

The only bet I will place at this stage, is a mad bet for the Madring.

2026 Spanish GP Tip: 0.5 point Sergio Perez to finish in the points @ 101.00 generally available

-JamesPunt