F1 returns to iconic venue and smashes 22-year record

Argentina unveils F1 Grand Prix plans — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 Off the Track

F1 returns to iconic venue and smashes 22-year record

Franco Colapinto drove around the streets of Buenos Aires

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Monday 27 April 2026 14:56

F1 returned to a location that it hasn't visited since 1998 last weekend, and smashed a 22-year record in the process.

Amid the five-week break from the 2026 season caused by the cancellations of the Saudi Arabian and Bahrain Grands Prix, one driver decided to delight his home fans with a street event.

Franco Colapinto is from the Buenos Aires region of Argentina, a city that held intermittent F1 world championship races between 1953-1998.

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While the country has not appeared on the F1 calendar since then, Colapinto's popularity since joining the F1 grid in 2024 has displayed quite how much F1 is loved in the South American country, and a street event involving the 22-year-old has now broken records.

Last weekend, Colapinto took to a public road in a legendary Mercedes W196 streamliner, as driven by compatriot and five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio, delighting fans with some quick spins and waving of the Argentinian flag.

Colapinto then jumped into a much more modern F1 car, the 2012 Lotus E20 which was rebranded in Alpine colours, the current name of the Enstone outfit and Colapinto's team. The young Argentine completed donuts in that car, which was driven by Kimi Raikkonen during the 2012 season and claimed victory at the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Overall, a whopping 600,000 fans were believed to be at the event which mainly took place down the Avenida Libertador, more than the attendance at many grands prix weekends across the season.

This number would also beat a previous record set in 2004, when Jenson Button, David Coulthard, Martin Brundle and Nigel Mansell were joined by Luca Badoer, Juan Pablo Montoya and Toyota's Cristiano da Matta and Zsolt Baumgartner for an event on the streets of London.

While that event was not ticketed and so fan numbers were only estimates, there were believed to be around 500,000 fans for the street event on Regent Street.

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F1 racers from Argentina

While Fangio is the only Argentinian F1 world champion, there are plenty from the South American country who have left their mark on the sport.

Carlos Reutemann claimed 12 grands prix victories between 1972-1982, finishing second in the 1981 world championship.

Jose Froilan Gonzalez raced in the sport at the same time as Fangio, and himself claimed two grand prix victories.

The only other drivers from Argentina to have claimed grand prix podiums in the sport are Onofre Marimon and Carlos Menditeguy, but Colapinto will be hoping to change that this season with his Alpine team who have been reinvigorated by their new Mercedes power unit partnership.

F1 Alpine Franco Colapinto Juan Manuel Fangio