While on a summer break in Barcelona last year, we managed to get a little taste of F1 history. During our trip we headed over to Montjuic Park, the location of the 1992 Summer Olympics and the former home of the Spanish Grand Prix. We planned our journey around the old Grand Prix circuit and here’s what we saw.
Click below to read about our experience.
Montjuic Park hosted the Spanish Grand Prix in ’69, ’71, ’73 and ’75, the final race ending early after Rolf Stommelen crashed which resulted in five spectators being killed.
While Catalunya may be way outside Barcelona centre, Montjuic Park is situated just a short tube ride from the city centre. After a quick bit of Googling we found the layout of track and drew it on our map.
As we walked up the road from the tube station towards the Olympic stadium we got to a split in the road and after a quick look at the map, we realised where we were.
This was in fact the first turn of the circuit, as you can see from the picture below that was taken in 1973.
We decide to walk around the whole circuit while we were there. Below is Turn 2, a slow right hand turn.
On the outside of the turn was an incredible view! And you thought Monaco was picturesque.
This photograph below is from turn 4 which heads passed some beautiful buildings….
…which haven’t changed much since the seventies.
Walking around the circuit you can see some of the buildings used for the 1992 Olympic games.
Turn 6 is a 90 degree turn which heads onto the main road, which was the long main straight.
The circuit then snakes left and right through a section aligned with trees.
The lap ends with two flat out corners, as you head to home straight you can visit the 1992 Olympic village.
You wouldn’t know now but this is in fact the start/finish straight of the Montjuic circuit.
Now used by cars and buses, this bit used to feature some sexy seventies F1 cars.
We’d walked the whole circuit hoping to see something that acknowledged the circuit even existed. We were giving up hope but as we arrived to the end of the home straight and back towards turn one, we found a small monument that noted the winners from the Grands Prix as well as the victors from the motorcycle race. It was surprising though that there was no tribute at all to the five Spanish fans who lost their lives at the race in 1975.
