After a wet and wild race in Monaco last weekend, Formula One is moving to Barcelona for its 33rd annual Spanish Grand Prix.
When Barcelona won the right to host the 1992 Summer Olympics, the city commissioned several new sports venues. Some, like the Palau D’Esports, were used for the Olympic Games themselves, while others were created in tandem to keep Barcelona a top a sporting destination.
The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, a sweeping, multi-purpose racetrack built just outside the city center, falls into the latter category: not used for the Olympics but developed in tandem with them to improve sporting infrastructure.
The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is a beloved track among drivers and fans. It has a good mix of high-speed corners (great for heart-in-mouth action) and low-speed corners (great for technical precision).
In fact, the circuit is so beloved that it often serves as a home base for F1 testing — when teams create new vehicles, they bring them to Barcelona to put them through their paces. It’s a fast, fun track, and it’s safe enough to allow drivers to really push the limits of their vehicles.
Need proof? Here are motorsport legends Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna in the inaugural Barcelona race in 1991, pushing each other into a wheel-to-wheel drag race across the circuit’s longest straight:
