Formula 1’s Red Bull gets train wheels and makes bizarre race in the Madrid subway

Red Bull has found an unconventional way to celebrate the return of the Spanish Grand Prix to Madrid after 45 years: it has placed a Formula 1 car on the Spanish capital’s metro tracks. The RB8, single-seater drivers’ and constructors’ champion in 2012, was adapted to run in the tunnels of the Madrid network.

The choice of the setting is not by chance: Madring, a new semi-urban circuit of 5.416 km and 22 curves built around the Ifema exhibition center, has a subway station inside the complex, through which most of the fans must pass during the three days of the event. Red Bull, in practice, tested the route before the public.

Why an F1 on the rails

The race will be on Sunday (13), closing a weekend that starts this Friday (11) and marks the debut of the track on the calendar. It is the 16th round of the season and the second race held in Spain in 2026, after Barcelona in June. Madrid had not hosted Formula 1 since 1981, when the Spanish GP was held at the Jarama racetrack; the contract with the category runs until 2035.

For the underground test drive, the team turned to the RB8, the single-seater that earned Sebastian Vettel the third of his four world titles and the team the third consecutive constructors’ championship. The car, powered by a naturally aspirated 2.4-liter V8 engine, needed adaptations to become a kind of train: specific steel wheels were developed, light enough not to damage the suspension, gearbox and transmission.

Two weeks and two prototypes discarded

The process was not immediate. According to Red Bull, two prototype wheels became too heavy and were abandoned before the final solution arrived, after about two weeks of work. Only then did Austrian Patrick Friesacher, a former Formula 1 driver for Minardi, take the wheel and make the V8 echo through the tunnels during a brief scheduled interruption of service.

Actions of this type are a trademark of the energy drink manufacturer, which debuted in Formula 1 in 2005, when it bought the structure of Jaguar Racing. Since then, Red Bull Racing has accumulated 14 world titles: eight drivers, four with Vettel and four with Max Verstappen, and six constructors’ titles, the last of them in 2023.

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