Jarama

Interesting facts

At the 1981 Spanish Grand Prix, Gilles Villeneuve held off a four-car train of faster-cornering rivals for over 60 laps without ever illegally blocking anyone. The top five crossed the line just 1.24 seconds apart, still the closest finish in Formula 1 history. Jarama was designed by John Hugenholtz, the same engineer behind Zandvoort and Suzuka, opening near Madrid in 1967. Its tight, twisty layout with barely one real straight made it notoriously hard to overtake on, a trait that would define, and eventually doom, its time on the calendar. The circuit's first World Championship race, the 1968 Spanish Grand Prix, arrived under a cloud: Jim Clark had died at Hockenheim weeks earlier, and his replacement Mike Spence was killed practicing for the Indy 500 just days before the Jarama race. Graham Hill's victory there helped hold a shattered Lotus team together. Through the early-to-mid 1970s, the Spanish Grand Prix alternated between Jarama and Barcelona's Montjuic Park street circuit, an arrangement that ended in tragedy in 1975 when Rolf Stommelen's car flew into the crowd barriers, killing five spectators and marshals. Formula 1 never returned to Montjuic, leaving Jarama as Spain's sole championship venue for the rest of the decade. Jarama hosted the Spanish Grand Prix nine times between 1968 and 1981, but its cramped, narrow layout was increasingly out of step with the wider, faster ground-effect cars of the early 1980s. It was dropped from the calendar after 1981, and Spain's Grand Prix moved on first to Jerez and later to the Circuit de Catalunya. The circuit is located in Madrid, Spain. Formula 1 has raced here since 1968, with 9 races held so far, most recently in 1981. The first race here was won by Graham Hill, in 1968. The most recent winner here was Gilles Villeneuve, in 1981. Mario Andretti has won here more than anyone else, 2 times. Among constructors, Team Lotus has been the most successful here, with 3 wins.

Circuit history