Valdebebas and Hortaleza Residents Erupt Ahead of Madrid’s First Formula 1 Grand Prix: “The Noise Is Unbearable”

Formula 1 is just a few days away from staging its first race on the new Madrid circuit, but the conflict with the neighbors is already on the table. The initial tests conducted this week with Formula 3 cars have allowed local residents to anticipate the experience with the track built around Ifema. “It’s a dreadful noise,” Constantino Bueno, spokesperson for the Stop F1 platform, told several media outlets.

And their problem goes far beyond a few hours of engines roaring beside homes: residents report that the disturbances have been mounting for months due to the construction, traffic closures, dust, and the setup of the facilities, and fear that the Grand Prix will further exacerbate a situation they already consider difficult to reconcile with daily life.

Stop F1 is now preparing new measurements during the race weekend and warns that it will take the conflict to the courts.

The initial tests have already raised alarms

According to records released by Stop F1, the noise reached around 100 decibels near the circuit, although in one measurement taken with a sound level meter placed on Francisco Umbral Street (tens of meters from the track), it registered an average of 102.7 dBA, with peaks of 107.7 dBA and a maximum of 109.1 dBA while about five Formula 3 cars were circulating.

The data is especially worrying because the cars conducting these initial tests are Formula 3, while Formula 1 cars will arrive in September. The platform itself warns that these measurements “do not yet have official status” and it is preparing teams with the necessary technical guarantees to record the impact during the GP.

Nevertheless, Stop F1 considers that these tests serve as a first reference of what may occur when the circuit operates at full capacity, although the measurements conducted under approved procedures will be the ones that can add value to its future actions.

Constantino Bueno insists that the disturbances are already affecting everyday activities such as residents’ telework and says that the situation “is incompatible with a neighborhood.” According to the Stop F1 spokesperson, residents face a difficult dilemma: stay at home enduring the noise or go out and face traffic closures and other mobility problems arising from the construction and setup of the circuit.

A problem that, for residents, goes far beyond the noise

The platform also contends that the impact will not be limited to the Grand Prix weekend, since “the assembly and disassembly of the facilities prolong the effects for months,” while residents in areas such as Las Cárcavas-San Antonio, Valdebebas, San Lorenzo, Villa Rosa, Las Pedroñeras and La Piovera have long been enduring changes in traffic and their surroundings.

That is why, the spokesperson says, the platform, in addition to pursuing judicial resources against the modification of the Partial Plan and against the project’s urban license, is already preparing its next move.