Formula 1’s growing calendar features 24 tracks and each has its challenges.
For drivers, some tracks are more acclaimed depending on layout, the thrill involved and their relative competitiveness. Some circuits are relished for a qualifying lap, while others are better for side-by-side racing. A home circuit can make some sentimental, as might its history, or have a passionate fan base.
There are 16 permanent circuits, and eight of them are semi-permanent or temporary street-based tracks, where public roads are used.
There are three permanent circuits that drivers typically acclaim: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps (often referred to as Spa) in Belgium, Silverstone in England and Suzuka International Racing Course in Japan.
All three are historic, renowned for their high-speed corners and natural flow, where drivers can push cars to the limit of adhesion and where mistakes will bite.
“Spa has always been my favorite track, with its fast corners and lots of opportunities for overtaking,” Max Verstappen of Red Bull said of the track, first used in 1921.
The sweeping circuit, surrounded by the Ardennes Forest, rises and falls 100 meters, about 330 feet, across its seven-kilometer lap. The Eau Rouge/Raidillon complex, a left-right-left corner through which drivers plunge before rapidly ascending, is revered as one of the most classic sections on any racetrack.
“Driving Spa is always special, and I particularly enjoy the elevation changes, the way the track climbs and drops, which we don’t experience at many tracks during the year,” Yuki Tsunoda of Visa Cash App RB said in an interview. “Most of the corners are high speed, very challenging, kind of old school.”
Silverstone, where Formula 1 first raced in 1950, has 10 of its 18 corners taken above 200 kilometers per hour, or about 125 miles per hour, including the Maggotts and Becketts turns, where the change of direction is staggering.
“Silverstone is one of the best circuits for a driver on the calendar in terms of pure driving sensations,” Pierre Gasly of BWT Alpine team said. “It’s fast, high-speed, a place where the car is at its limit through some of the corners, and that is just so much fun at the wheel.”
Zhou Guanyu of Kick Sauber agreed that “Silverstone is always fun — it’s one of those tracks that seems designed to push the limits of what our cars can achieve.”
“There are some corners, like Copse or the Maggotts/Becketts combination, that are just unreal from within the cockpit, especially in qualifying,” he added.
Suzuka’s narrow figure-eight layout features an abundance of high-speed curves that navigates its way through the undulating Japanese countryside. Its first sector, featuring a sequence of sweeps called the esses, is another area where the aerodynamic prowess of Formula 1 cars — and drivers’ confidence — is truly tested, as grass, gravel and barriers perilously line the circuit edge.
“It’s a lot of fun when the car is also really hooked up,” Verstappen said. “If you have a car that is not really well balanced in the first sector, it makes it really, really challenging. But a car that is just very stable gives you a lot of confidence, and then you can really push sector one, which for me is the best part of the track. If you make a small mistake, you can go off in the grass or gravel.”
Many drivers are in awe of Suzuka.
“I’d say it’s my favorite track of the whole season,” Carlos Sainz of Ferrari said. “It’s got everything and demands the most from the car as well as from the driver. Personally, I find that tracks where you lose time if you cross the white lines are the best.
“That’s exactly what happens here, and every mistake costs you dear, given that the barriers are very close. The first series of esses is marvelous, but, honestly, there’s not a single corner I don’t like.”
Street tracks provide a different challenge, but they can have distinct features. Singapore’s Marina Bay is torturous and bumpy, with an abundance of slow-speed 90-degree turns, the task accentuated by extreme humidity. But the Jeddah circuit in Saudi Arabia is rapid, with smooth and grippy tarmac, and was essentially purpose-built, but designed to feel like a street track. Its average lap of 254 kilometers an hour makes it the fastest street circuit.
“The walls are super close, so your focus is constantly at 100 percent,” Verstappen said. “Some tracks you can relax a bit on the straight or whatever, but [at Jeddah] the straights — most of them are not even straights — you’re constantly turning, pulling G, so your body doesn’t have a lot of rest.
“And the [tire] degradation is very low, so you can push quite high every single lap compared to maybe some other tracks where you have to pace manage a lot more. I think that all together makes it one of the hardest tracks on the calendar.”
Monaco, at 3.3 kilometers, is under half the length of Spa, but it packs a lot into its congested and breathless layout, which has barely changed since 1929. Newer street tracks such as Singapore and Las Vegas ensure Formula 1 remains fresh, but Monaco remains the doyen of street tracks, with no room for error, heightened by its glamorous location and prestige.
In a sport renowned for speed, Monaco’s lap is among the slowest, at 170 kilometers an hour, but the impression of speed is magnified.
“It is more special than any other street circuit given that it’s Monaco, the history,” Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes said. “I love street circuits, I always have. They’re a lot more violent. They’re more challenging I think compared to the open areas, they’re more risky, more hair-raising. I always feel when you look into the harbor, you look over this place and you think about the history, it just blows you away. I remember watching on TV as a kid, dreaming of going through that tunnel where Ayrton [Senna] was. It is very, very surreal to think today that I’m one of the 20 to do it.”
Kevin Magnussen of Haas said he believed that Monaco was “the best track on the calendar to drive.”
“It’s just phenomenal on these little tight streets with walls everywhere,” he said. “The feeling of driving a Formula 1 car in Monaco, to me, is the best of the year.”
Racing on city streets, which reopen to city traffic each evening, brings other challenges.
“It’s very unique and probably one of the best moments of the season,” Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin said. “The circuit is evolving at a rate that is not in any other circuits. So you have to guess what the grip will be in the next session. All the setup changes, they have implications of guessing what the car and the track will do. And then in qualifying, [it’s] the only qualifying of the season that basically you go through corners at the speed that you’ve never been before.”
Monaco’s narrow streets mean the race is among the least exciting of the season, with the drivers unable to overtake.
“We know there’s no overtaking in the race, so it does feel now with all these other races where overtaking is pretty good and racing is pretty good, that it is a bit of a weird one because there’s so little,” Magnussen said of Monaco.
Formula 1’s newest venue, Las Vegas, is almost the opposite of Monaco. It is wide and has lengthy straights, but few challenging turns.
“As a racetrack, with overtaking, it was very exciting,” Oscar Piastri of McLaren said in an interview. “Qualifying, maybe not necessarily the most exciting track we’ve been to, but very different to anywhere we’ve been to.”
And, when a semi-permanent street in Madrid joins in 2026, drivers will have another layout to sample.
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