Madrid

Madrid is taking on the Spanish Grand Prix, and it has built the circuit to match, a new track on the edge of the city by the IFEMA exhibition grounds, close enough to walk back into town when the chequered flag drops. This is a championship race arriving in a capital, not a grand prix marooned in a car park an hour from anywhere. The contrast is the whole point: the noise and heat of race weekend on one side, the Prado, the rooftop terraces and the late dinners that don't start until ten on the other. Few circuits let you trade the grid for a table that quickly.

We fly here for the rare grand prix you can leave on foot, into a city that treats midnight as the start of the evening, not the end of it. The hard part of any race weekend is the journey home; better to skip the queue and keep the night. A championship weekend, and a capital that knows what to do with it once the engines stop.