2023-08-07 09:26:12
Although away, at least for now, from the highest competition, the Jarama is still a temple for squeeze everything with wheels. In order to keep it fully operational, the RACE has carried out extensive improvement works in recent years, which affected the entire circuit except for the layout, which is 12 meters wide. The first phase, in which the control tower and the adjacent area, known as the ‘paddock club’, were modernized, was completed in October 2015.
in the second modifications were made in the grandstand, which was extended one hundred meters, as well as the resurfacing of the rope of the main track, 3,850 meters long, in 2018; and the complete renovation of the boxes and the area above them, adapting them to new needs and modernizing an area that is constantly used by all those who enjoy the Jarama facilities. And in the last one, which ended in 2021, a museum of cars made in Spain was built.
Works of the Jarama PF
It is not for less. It is important to keep the history of the engine. And it is that as in other circuits, each curve of the Jarama is a tribute to the history of the engine. Le Mans pays homage to the historic endurance race held in Sarthe (France), while Ascari commemorates the legendary Italian driver who died at the Monza circuit, after whom another section of the track is named. Likewise, Fangio pays homage to the Argentine motorist Juan Manuel Fangio and likewise Varzi, Nuvolari or Bugatti remember missing pilots. Pegaso, for its part, as the ramp behind the Ascari curve is known, pays homage to the historic Spanish brand of trucks and cars.
After 56 years, the track continues to host multiple activities, in yet another example of the Club’s commitment to maintaining this important work of disseminating this sport. Although for many, having passed this age does not mean more than a mere anniversary, the truth is that a little more than five decades ago it was little less than unthinkable that in Spain there could be a permanent speed track with the excellent characteristics that the jarama. Until then, sports races in Spain had been carried out in improvised circuits that took advantage of the layouts of roads and streets for public use.
It was the celebration in 1903 of the Paris-Madrid race, the trigger for the founding of the Club. For this reason, the official inauguration of the Jarama circuit, in 1967, was a transcendental milestone in the already long history of the RACE. Spain was in the process of motorization. The Seat 600, launched six years earlier and on sale until 1973, was causing a real revolution.
It was an accessible and versatile car, perfect for the day-to-day life of a country that had already overcome the post-war period and was entering a period of expansion. The car was then more a tool or luxury transportation than an object deserving of interest or even passion. With the intention of changing this perception, RACE decided to build a speed circuit, the first in Spain, in an arid terrain full of bushes in San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid).
Names of the curves of the Jarama PF
Sandro Rocci was in charge of the construction works of the future circuit, being the architects Rodríguez Riveiro and Domínguez Aguado who were entrusted with the work of building the grandstands and the boxes, and John Hugenholtz, a profound connoisseur of this type of facility that He had the experience of having designed the Zanwoort racetracks in the Netherlands, Suzuka in Japan and others in North America, to gather technical information on an engineering project that was totally unknown in Spain. Hugenholtz came to our country and visited the forty-six hectares reserved for the circuit, which he described as ideal for carrying out this project.
The first leveling works could be carried out throughout 1964. The track had a real length of 3,432 metres, although the length approved by the FIA was 3,404 metres, this measurement corresponding to the route followed by the cars in the race. The numerous curves that make up the Jarama made it a very technical circuit, although the width of its road, nine meters, allowed it to be negotiated in very good conditions. For its construction, more than two million kilos of cement and four thousand cubic meters of gravel were necessary. The pavement was stabilized with a first layer of cement 15 centimeters thick, on which different layers of asphalt concrete were superimposed, the last one, called rolling, had finer gravel than the previous ones. The final result was an excellent surface for the dispute of any sporting competition.
Despite the fact that the significant rains that fell during the winter of 1965 and the spring of the following year delayed the normal rhythm of the works, in the last days of 1966 the first contact of the Spanish athletes with the new circuit took place. Alessandro Rocci himself would be in charge of cutting the inauguration ribbon on July 1, 1967.
The golden age of this “monument to motor sport” began, as Ramón Roca Maseda, author of “The automobile in the history of Spain”, describes it. On its layout, then 3,432 meters -although the FIA approved was 3,404- and today 3,850, competitions of all categories have been held, from Formula 1, 2, 3 and 3000, to world and European championships. and from Spain motorcycling, car racing, passenger cars and trucks. It has also become an ideal place for vehicle presentations, driving courses and classic meetings, such as the one held last March, when eight single-seaters from the 70s and 80s competed on a track that F1 abandoned in 1981. for technical and security reasons. The baton then passed to the new generation of racetracks, adapted to international regulations, such as those of Montmeló and Jerez. Races such as that of Gilles Villeneuve and his Ferrari 126 (1981) remained to be remembered, still remembered with emotion by those who were able to see it.
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