January 2024, Madrid confirms that it will have a Formula 1 circuit after years of chasing him. Without a permanent circuit that can host the event, the FIA and Madrid political leaders welcome the proposal that the streets of a PAU north of Madrid and the IFEMA facilities They lay the foundations of the show.
It is a movement, that of using a city as an attraction but not passing through any of its emblematic places, that the organization of Formula 1 has been practicing for some time. A sport that has been filled with semi-urban and insubstantial circuits, very far from the concept of Monaco.
The problem is that the only thing that keeps Monaco on the calendar is tradition and glamour. The streets of the principality have become too small for cars much larger than decades ago and the spectacle on the track already seems to be the least of it. The solution has been to bring these circuits to spaces such as outskirts of Miami or Madrid.
The problem is that people live there. Yes, there are people who are not always willing to have their streets transformed into a circuit, taking up assembly and disassembly work for weeks and having to suffer the noise of cars passing at 300 km/h a few meters from their portals. “They are selling my health to make money”said one of those affected by the Stop F1 Madrid platform.
And the neighborhoods have their own dynamics and spaces that were there long before Formula 1 arrived there. For example: the sheep.
Year and a half of notices
Although it may not seem like it, the roads, paths and roads of Spain are the result of a planning designed centuries ago but live for the daily use of them. Sometimes, like roads, they have been used to structure our country. In other cases, although invisible to the untrained eye, they live for a handful of the most unexpected users.
Every year, at the end of October, Thousands of sheep continue to pass through Madrid’s Gran Vía. Although it may have some folklore for those less familiar with the countryside, it is still part of the path for those who practice migration. Because yes, no matter how few they may be, there are those who keep transhumance alive.
One of those historical paths that contemplate the passage of animals is the Vereda de los Leñeros, one of the livestock routes that pass through Madrid. These steps, points out the Community of Madrid itselfdefine the spaces intended primarily for the transit of livestock and which in the case of trails have a width of 20 meters.
When the modification that IFEMA had to make to host the event was put on the table, environmentalists and neighbors confirmed that they were diverting the livestock route but, according to Antonio Giraldo, Spokesperson for Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility of the PSOE in the Madrid City Council, it was falling into illegality.
“Either they ventilate a livestock trail (illegal) or reduce the surface of municipal green areas (illegal). But you cannot do both at the same time,” Giraldo then pointed out because according to their calculations, there was no space in the neighborhood to divert the livestock route without falling into one of these two assumptions.
It has been a year and a half since the controversy began. The first voices that warned of the problem came in February 2025. In July 2026, weeks before the cars compete in the north of Madrid, those responsible for the region have presented the modification with a publication in the Official Gazette of the Community of Madrid: raise the livestock route to save the Formula 1 circuit in style.
They explain in The Country that the Vereda de Leñeros has existed since the 19th century and that its original route passes through IFEMA, which has been trying to move it to the margins of the complex for years. However, it has not been until now coinciding with Formula 1 that the modification project has been presented. For the opposition, it represents a clear example that private interests are altering “land with very high protection that could derail the project.”
Since then, the tug of war between the opposition and the Madrid City Council has been constant. Also the criticism from neighbors who have found in this supposed illegality the possibility of preventing the event from going ahead. However, everything seems decided for the livestock route to be modified. The City Council’s plan involves dusting off a preliminary project that proposed building an eco-bridge to save the M-11 and join the Vereda de los Leñeros with that of Valdecarros, which were separated when this road was built.
That is, the plan goes through carry animals over a 12-lane stretch. A decision that the opposition, neighborhood groups and environmentalists continue to criticize. From the Madrid Ecologist Platform they point out that: “The livestock trails are public domain assets owned by the Community of Madrid, they cannot overlap with another public domain such as a green area (referring to the park through which the new path is intended to pass)”, in words collected by elDiario.es.
The environmental group explains that the sections should be transferred by IFEMA since they were the ones that completely closed the passage of the road with their facilities and are the promoters of the event and that it cannot be the Madrid City Council that gives up land in a green area to give way to said modification.
And from Liberum Natura they already announce that they will argue against the project (Justice already admitted another allegation of his in May) because they consider that if it is given free rein it could be used by other municipalities in the future so that the livestock trails are raised above green areas and thus they can continue gaining ground for private businesses such as building apartments… or a Formula 1 circuit.
Photo | Madring and Sam Carter
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