Business of Speed Podcast - The One with Jarno Zaffelli, F1 Circuit Designer

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Jarno Zaffelli sculpts racetracks.The founder of Dromo Circuit Design, the man behind Zandvoort’s revival and Silverstone’s refinements, now turns his eye to Madrid.In this episode of Business of Speed, Vincenzo Landino and co-host Lali Michelsen sit down with the Italian designer redefining what “track design” means in Formula 1. Zaffelli explains why Madring, the new F1 circuit in Madrid is a living organism: flowing, breathing, and built with emotion as much as engineering.They explore:The passion and philosophy behind Madring.How Italian artistry shapes modern circuit design, from Michelangelo to motorsport.Lessons from Zandvoort, Silverstone, and Suzuka.The balance of science, art, and obsession that drives Zaffelli’s process.Why imperfection creates beauty in life, love, and lap times.

hola vincent welcome welcome back lali to the business of speed podcast how are you this fine fine morning i'm doing quite well actually it snowed in toronto over the weekend yeah so that's something i've had to deal with but other than that doing quite well i'm looking forward to some snow i know i know everyone's gonna oh i don't hate the snow i want a little bit of snow just give me something give me that white covering you know christmas time it's nice no it's only good if you're on a mountain skiing or snowboarding other than that in a city i'm in a huge city it's a disaster true true today we have a special guest i think i always say this we always have a special guest everyone's special we have just so our audience knows we'll never bring someone

who isn't special we're always going to bring you people that were very passionate they're always they're always special i know today's guest yarno zafeli is incredible track designer so we actually already talked to him while i'm recording this and i'm just thinking of the conversation i'm saying to myself wow i felt like i just talked to an artist an engineer somebody who taught me about the pope is a poet he was a poet yeah romantic with his choice of words like just an extraordinary man for sure you know when we first got connected with the i don't know to talk about track design you just you know you don't know what to expect and the conversation just flows so well and then by the end we're getting deep into life and love and passion and soul and sex and it's yeah it's

an incredible conversation and and to me one thing I'm gonna and I'll ask you the same question but to me the one thing that really really stood out that I really really took home and I enjoyed was he made a comment he makes a comment about when you build a track you can't just take the best pieces from other tracks around the world and throw them together because it's much like saying i want to build the perfect woman or man for myself and you put that together and you put it up on a picture and it looks like ai it's too perfect there's there's no imperfect it's just it it's almost there's something wrong right and building tracks is is very similar and building you know these you know he's involved in in the mad ring so building these circuits is very very

um i don't say specialized it's not the right word but it's dependent on the land that you're in the people that are there and you know he even talks about how the the track should speak to you anyway this is a fantastic conversation i want to hear though what was the one thing you took away from it you know my favorite part i guess is i have a really big passion and admiration for people who are doers who don't take up for an answer who who they don't know how to do it figure figure it out so he actually built the or started building the track in his home track he'd never built a track he finished his engineering degree we didn't we didn't touch on it during the interview because we ran out of time but he was a photographer and then all of a sudden he's building

a racetrack yeah and he just did it and i love you can just do things you can just do the thing And I really, really am passionate about people who just are doers, who create, who have that type of mentality. So that was that was my favorite part, I think, just knowing that he just like went and built a track with zero experience. Enough from us. Yarno Zafele, fantastic conversation. I know you'll enjoy. Lali, buongiorno. How are you? Hola, Vincenzo. How are you? I'm very good. We have a special guest with us today. We do indeed. Giorno Zaffelli, who his name is pretty well renowned in the circuit business.

And I'm proud to have him on the show. Giorno, buongiorno. How are you? Buongiorno, everybody. Yeah, very good. Thank you. Where are you today? At this moment, I'm in Hungary in Budapest for the Formula One circuit.

We are actually doing some works on the track of maintenance. Oh, okay. That sounds like a pretty cool job. Yeah, well, we are doing this since 25 years ago. And we, of course, pushed a lot to find something that was interesting and also difficult to do and challenging. So here is where we are here with the team and all my company. Very nice. Go ahead, Lali.

Yeah, I have a question that you've probably answered a million times, but I'm very curious. So my origin is Danish, so I know a little bit about Scandinavia. I know the name Jarno is definitely Finnish. It's not Italian. So I want to know if there's a Jarno Sardinian connection, if your parents were motorcycle fans. Did you grow up near Milano or Monza? Can you tell us a little bit about how you ended up with the name Jarno? Well, I ended up exactly for that reason, Lali.

Basically, I was born in 76. Jarno Sardinian died, unfortunately, in 73. And the fact is that, and they're calling me from the workshop. So, and the basic is that my parents were passionate about motorcycling, but they were supporters of Giacomo Agostini. But they didn't like the name Giacomo. They would like to give me a name that was different than the others. And they decided for Jarno if I was a boy and Soili if I was a girl

because Soili was the wife of Jarno. And, well, I born a boy. And so here I am. And I have to say that my name is definitely mainly, The main reason why we are here talking today, because, of course, it opened up a few doors since the beginning, because, of course, having a name that is coming from Sardinian was giving him a hint that the family was already connected to the motorsport and so on, you know. So, yeah, I'm proud to have this name and trying to live in that name. And so you grew up a big fan of motorcycle racing. That was your first love in motorsport?

Well, it is difficult to say it was the first love in motorsport because the first love, I guess, was Formula 1. But definitely, motorcycling was the place where I trained the most myself, riding bikes, and working immediately since 2003, 2004, also on MotoGP trucks. so I started mainly in in motorcycling because of two reasons the first one is that the market was basically a monopoly of one of our competitors in Formula One and in MotoGP there was much more thought and attention to details and especially on the asphalt quality bumpiness and so on and safety so basically i started there for this reason professionally on a passion level formula one was the first nice so you uh how did you what made you want to get into track design though like you know you love the sport we all i love the sport i didn't become a track designer what made

you want to take that path okay it was it was 1990 and basically i was going at university i was not looking at myself i was a very very strong i.t technician if you now have an apple an iPhone or something. There are lines of codes that were written by me. At the time, even if I was very young, I was certified by Apple. But the fact is that I was not looking at myself completing the study of engineering, nor being at 40 years old, an expert IT technician. So for a couple of years, 1998 and 1999, I was really striving to see myself somewhere at 40. And I was looking for something that was not definitely motorsport. I was very open in this. I was trying to find something that was challenging enough to keep myself

interested for the time being. And it happened at the end of 1999, I had two friends coming back from a racetrack, doing a track day with bikes. And I was saying, well, if we would have a racetrack in our hometown, it would be always full. Because I'm coming from Reggio Emilia, that is in the center of Motor Valley, northern part of Italy, 15 minutes from Maranello, Ferrari, and well, all the other brands, supercars, Ducati as well. So the basic is that in general 2000 i started to think okay racetrack few designers difficult to do a lot of different aspects uh engineering civil chemistry by biology project management really hard stuff let's do that so i started without having knowledge no knowledge in race track design at all but with a very strong

IT background and technical. I'm an industrial engineer without a degree. And I left the university stating once I will have engineers and architects working for me instead of wasting my time to try to be an architect and engineer. And I simply tried to build the truck in my hometown for seven long years. And I didn't succeed. I didn't. But then all the other Racetrack started to ask me to share my experience in 2008 because I traveled all the world for seven years doing designs and trying to learn from the other circuits why they were built like that, which were the choices, why the corner was like that, how they were doing the safety and trying to fill the gap with the knowledge and my work.

There's that saying, have you heard it? Fake it till you make it. Fake it until you make it. No, I never actually heard about it. But I can reckon that a lot of people in the business actually do like that. But I don't feel it mine because when I'm doing something, I'm always very serious. So what is happening is that I never, and this is continuing nowadays, I never go to find a client or a new project trying to fake it.

but trying to simply to say okay I know that much and I know how much I'm missing I'm not going to tell you that we will succeed but I will try as hard as I can and I know what I need to do to arrive there so sorry my approach is always very very very technical and scientific I'm always start from the point that if someone did something in the past I can achieve it and I can teach someone how to achieve it that's that's why we we are at the peak of the technology in restaurant design like we are in this moment we have technical capabilities that no one else has we have softwares we have techniques that

no one is using and is the reason why we have long-standing relationship we have clients in Formula 1 that not only manufacturing and so on that are with us since 10-15 years and running and they're calling us every time to fix also when they cannot find solutions. We are very different in respect to the other competitors of ours because our history is different. We are not starting from architecture or engineering we are starting from the manufacturing of the truck itself. So we simply apply our problem-solving skill set to solve the issues that you have there. We do not like to design something and say, okay, someone else will engineer it. We try to follow from the beginning to the end or the process. For the people who

don't know that process, can you highlight the big key milestones that take place? If I approach today and I have this plot of land and I want a racetrack built what how long is that process how much money would be involved and what are sort of the key milestones along the way very broad obviously I don't know okay so let's say that Lali would like to would like to build a truck you have of course you would you have a land you want to do a permanent truck not a street circuit if you want to do a permanent truck the first thing that we need to understand is to do what You would like to do a club, you would like to do a racetrack for yourself, you would like to do it for your friends, you would like to do to-do racing, or you would like to do only to-do track days, or you would like to do it to test a car that you are manufacturing and you would like to have a proving ground. once you know what you want to do we can tell you if the land is enough if the land is suitable if

you can get the permission in that land if you have the budget because the budget is really depending on which one it is and we can start together a process and the process is starting understanding where you want to go it's like a journey you know it's like when when you were 15 or 16 that you were looking at yourself at 25 where I want to go is like when you start you want to go on holiday okay maybe you don't know the path that you will go that you will do to arrive there but you know that you want to go to the Maldives and you don't know the airline yet so basically you're coming to us asking saying okay I want to go to Maldives which airline I should take, or if I need to run boat or something and the budget will change.

But that's it. Do you, you know, cost of track is very different and, and Lali and I were talking yesterday a little bit about currently, we see a lot of street circuits is the, is the, is right now what is happening, especially in formula one and you you're working, we'll talk a little bit about Madrid in a second. Do you think, why do you think it is that we're moving further away from purpose built tracks, at least in racing. It's not a general tendency in racing.

It's a general, it's a specific tendency in Formula One. Uh, it's a simple reason. If you run a business like Formula One, it is much better to bring your show to the masses rather than having the masses that are coming to your place. So street circuits are a perfect reason, of course, to put your city on the map. So if Vincenzo is the mayor of a certain city, he can say, okay, I would like the people to come and visit and to know my city, I show them and I give them an excuse to come to my place.

And Lali, that is the CEO of Formula One is just going to Vincenzo and stating, okay, you can come to me. I can just bring you Formula One if we agree on the terms. And it's a win-win situation. on a permanent race track is different because a permanent race track normally is not funded well for formula one yes but normally is a private truck need a lot of subsidies from the public to be able to sustain a bus a business like formula one and basically a permanent truck can live also without formula one therefore it's not necessary for a permanent truck to have formula

one but it's necessary for formula one to have a track and formula one of course would have a better a better result in image in rights in broadcasting in advertising if they have a strict circuit rather than a permanent one so in general racing if you think about it all the racing world super bike, MotoGP, if you're going in others, WEC, GT cars are always in permanent circuits. In US, IndyCar is going in street circuit. Formula E is going in street circuit, but again, for different reasons. And mainly because they're trying to bring the show to the masses rather than the opposite. What about the nightmare situation? When someone comes to you, which one typically has more stress points for you, creating a temporary street course or a

permanent road course? For a lot of reasons, it's much more complicated than a street circuit in a European country, specifically in a European country. The reason is, I can talk about some genesis like in Singapore, for example. If you're going in Singapore, the roads are naturally already big. So you can find a road that is already big enough to host what Formula One and FIA requires. If you're going in a European city that is, of course, older than all the rest, the vast majority of the world, it is much more difficult to find a road, a street that is not narrow too much. So the case of Madrid, for example, the nightmare is coming from the amount of layering of all

the participants to the decision process when you're going in a street circuit you have a lot of different agency that are that are going in and if you're going in europe you have even more than if you are in us or in saudi or in asia because it's a different way of having rights is a different way of well history level that piled up bureaucracy in a lot of way i can tell that in Madrid we had more than 55 different agencies involved in the authorization process called the Licencia Omnibus. And it was a nightmare.

Of course, a nightmare from a designer perspective and on a perspective of the one that is doing all this process. You can think only about when we received the, how you call it, prescription, I guess, On the design, on the first iteration of the design, it was 2023. The document was like 60 pages of things. And the problem is that some are not in agreement with others.

So you try to, you try to fulfill one requirement and you cannot fulfill others. So it was a very hard job that was over the 24th of April of this year, achieving go the licensing and authorization to build construct and so on and of course it's an ongoing process now it will be who now in that process you said there was over 55 parties involved yeah is there somebody who has more influence than others in this in that case madrid's case faia promoter government who was there one party that has more of a say Definitely in that stage was not FIA or Formula One, because we were starting with a concept that was developed in 2023. And that concept was the one on which Formula One and Madrid approved, OK, in principle, we are going there.

it. But then we redid the design completely because the design was to be buildable and to be approvable. Therefore, we started in end of June last year, we started a long process where the 55 entities came in without having Formula One and FIA involved because that was more local authorization process on the basis that we are the designer that are bringing the FIA and Formula One capability and knowledge, until there is an approval in principle, we are not going back again to FIA and F1 to ask for the approval of the modification of the concept. Therefore, the 55 were, for example, the municipality, the community, and then you have the water district, you have the people that are looking out of the sewage,

electricity, you don't have only one supplier and you're crossing a road that is just having five different suppliers. You have telecoms, you have, the airport is very near. So you're looking at the height of your cranes during the construction. Ah, I will have the helicopters that will need to land there during the operation. There are four, you understand, I'm not going to bother you on all these details, but it's all thinking at the event since the beginning and trying to fit all the requirements of everyone, then are coming, of course, the neighbors are coming,

the protection of animals, all this kind of stuff. Altogether in a big process that in Italy, sorry, in Italy, in Europe is always very, very, very complex in Italy as well. But Madrid was strong enough to be the first capital in Europe that can have, in the old Europe that can have a Formula One event in Istanbul. What are you most excited about for the, let's talk about Madring for a second. What, uh, what features of the circuit are you most excited for? Tell us, you know, what should we look forward to watching it? Well, the most exciting for me is definitely the hyper truck

section that is in the north. Basically the part where we are trying to get back bankings like we did in Zandvoort. Unfortunately, for new regulation in 2026, we had to reduce it a bit in respect to what we would like to do in the beginning. But definitely, we are looking a lot on the dynamic of that section where we are going down seven meters

and then we are banking on 25% and then going down again seven meters and up 10 meters. So there are a lot of changes of an elevation in the corner that is dubbed La Mourmentale. And this is the main part that from my side is, well, let's say, the signature of the track itself. But in general terms, I guess the feeling will be given

by all the public and all the organization of the race there. Spanish are very good in doing all this kind of stuff and they are planning to fill, well, to fill the space and to have the feeling of the people, and especially Spanish are very hot on this. And I really look forward to see everything there. On the truck itself, the good part is that it's a real street circuit in some section and it's a real permanent circuit on the northern part.

So it's just a bit of everything. You need to understand that as a designer, you will see the northern part that is called Valdebebas, that it seems a truck that is a bit odd because we had a very big area. And why? So we constrained the truck in a specific zone. And the reason is basically that you don't see it, but there we were working with virtual pavilions because IFEMA is going to expand the plot there with pavilions. So we were already future-proofing the design.

So if Lali is coming to us and she wants to build a truck, she is going to tell us, okay, but tomorrow in my land, I would like to build a house there. And we need to design it in the beginning. It's going to be a big house. So we can design it. Yes, a very big one. Single floor, swimming pool, all this kind of stuff.

Danish style. Yeah, I get it. You already know her. Well, this, I guess, was just to know each other. Of course, of course. I do have a question that is just funny. When you finish a track, whether it's a street course or a permanent course, do you get behind a really nice car and do some hot laps to test it out yourself?

Yes, normally we do it as a part of the process in the construction. So actually we are doing it every layer of asphalt that we do. Lasers we do, we use lasers, we use technologies, but we use also cars. For example, when we redid Silverstone, Silverstone was giving us an Aston Martin Vantage DB8 that we were using there. In other circuits like Nogaro, we used a Porsche GT3. Depending, we used also Lambo. In the last truck that we did for Ferrari, Ferrari was coming, bringing us SF90 or La Ferrari or a thing like that. Because when you're doing it, you need to fill it with the cars that you are going to use.

Of course, we cannot use a Formula One. For that, there are simulation and technologies and we're using drivers like Carlos, science to test it or the test driver in the teams that are testing the geometries. The difficult part of our job is that you cannot test it with a Formula 1 until a Formula 1 is there. So you need to be sure that you're doing a good job of Formula 1. And sometimes, you know, shit happens. But it always happens when you are trying to do something, even if you're trying to do your best mistake happens. It's a really complex task where it's not only me, it's not only my team, but a lot of people that are working in this moment.

You need to consider that the supervision in Madryn was about 55 people already back in June. Thinking about the construction on the track and the pit building and all this kind of stuff, a total of more than 1,000 will work on that. We worked in worksites where we had at times 9,000 people working. So it is extremely challenging and difficult, But that's why I thought it was fun to do it when I was over 40 and when I was 18. This is another kind of fun question, but if you had to build a track, money was no object, permits were no object, dream location for you, where would you build a track? Dream location for me, a hallway in the middle of a volcano.

Oh, wow. You're going to do a Hot Wheels action. Yes, they're all in Iceland, in the middle of the volcanoes. I mean, that would be my, if I can, if I could, my February location. Given that the three of us will be at the first ever Circuit Awards that are happening in February in Lusail, this has never happened before, the first time tracks will get recognized and awarded, it would be a sin not to ask you of the tracks you've never touched, you've never worked on, just dream tracks around the world.

Which is your absolute favorite in terms of. Suzuka. Oh, no. Well, you can't say Suzuka. I knew you were going to say that. So you can't say Suzuka. Because you already, I know you like Suzuka, so not Suzuka. Not Suzuka.

No, that I never worked on. Yeah. No. That I never worked on. Maybe in the U S let's talk in the U S. If I'm talking about UF, U S sorry. I have a couple that I really would like to. Mount Tremblant and Sebring for two different reasons because because we did our main skill set

we we we built our skill set on an idea on analyzing bumps and Sebring is just putting bumps as their own proud and Mount Tremblant because how it is the track itself so yeah I guess probably i would love to to go in separate ones not to fix it not to fix it but just to to study it to to learn something from how they use it how the different philosophy they have yeah that one yeah i would highlight separate i love that that's a very different answer because you said suzuka so quickly i'm gonna i want to let you explain why do you love suzuka so much Simple is the first truck that was built by a real designer, John Huguenots. So it's the real first permanent truck that was designed only to have fun in mind.

And it's basically, it lasted for a very, very long time. You need to remember that the design was 1962 and it's still there with his own features. And you need to understand that they had a connection with John Huguenots, a very strong one because when I was called to do Zandvoort and we did it and my favorite corner that is the number three three is called after John Huguenot and his son John Huguenot's junior was kind enough to share all the expertise and the manuals and the drawings and and the memorabilia of his father with me and that are now part of our expertise know-how and so on and my favorite

suzuka was was was also before because his design if you're going there you can feel that that place is speaking is talking to you he's telling you something if you are in real estate and you are going to look at a house you enter in a house can be a really fancy and pricey house and not giving you a feeling so the difficulty of a designer of an architect is just giving a soul at something that is building from the scratch or that even worse is touching like a plastic surgery surgeon and to give back or empower the peculiarities of the people of the person that you're working on. This is the most difficult part of our job, like we intend to. So if you're going in Suzuka, you have a truck that is talking, it's telling you something. If you're going to a modern

truck, many times you cannot feel it, you cannot hear it. You are simply on a cathedral, very well built, nicely done, incredibly expensive, but it's not talking to you, at least not talking to me. and so when we did Sunward when we are just we did Madrink the design and so on the difficult part is to try to give this feeling to the drivers to the people that are going there bystanders everyone involved is the difference between the designer is the difference between the creation is the difference between women and men because women can create and can give this can give life men cannot apart from their first five seconds you know but apart from that five seconds many in my case yes exactly we are useless yeah we are indeed well less use yes useful than

women much less useful that's right much less but we have of course i have two daughters and i have to say that we can have an influence of feeling something but definitely creating something like an architecture or racetrack and trying to give that that you can naturally give to life as a woman and from our side trying to give it as a man that is just building something artificial is what we are trying to do and i guess that is the ultimate target that we need to aspire to as men well you've done a good job at being the king of soul on track so well done well blending i think you know what i'm what i'm hearing what i hear is is the the very precise balance between science and art right and that's what you're creating absolutely absolutely no is what not

what i'm creating what we are trying to create trying to create then if we are creating is for someone else to say it's like uh you know is this coming back to racetrack design if lali was coming to me and asking, look, yeah, no, I love this corner in Sebeling. I love this corner to Suzuka. I was like, and I want these corners in my truck. I was going to tell you, okay, change the designer. We are not the right guys. For a simple reason, if you can, in your dream, to think about the nicest hands that you can see from a lady, the nicest eyes, the nicest nose, and so on and you try to collate it all together it will maybe become something like an ai drawing okay be as nice as the lack of perfection is the beauty for for the humans are done especially in

these defects in these things that are giving you a different perception of the people of the Well, I'm just going sideways, but it's just to explain that a perfect truck, perfectly built, not necessarily is very beautiful. Quite the contrary. So we try to engineer. And also a little boring, a little boring, to be honest. Those super perfect, perfect trucks. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But you make track design like love.

I am a very good driver. I didn't know that. I mean Ferrari track what do you consider good? I've done Ferrari track days I go you know maybe once or twice a year

to a karting track but I'm not a professional oh okay you know a karting for example to me a good driver is a good karting driver

not the rest if he's doing kartings anyone doing karting is already understanding that the fun is there and so

I'm fine with that so you're saying Vincenzo sorry you're asking me no I was saying you make track design sound like love and passion which i believe is the goal it sounds like that is your your thesis which is beautiful maybe next time we have you on the show we could talk about how

how track design is like love i was thinking the same i guess it's there's too much we can't cover today so we need to have it we need to have them back i guess is uh yeah i guess is uh love and passion in your life so basically if you have it in your life you're trying to apply it everywhere and in our work as well so it's not something that we do only in our job we're doing always so we are as we are i'm i'm myself with you in this moment i'm not changing if you are coming with us in the work site tomorrow or you will see me in Qatar

I will be exactly the same so I like to be the way we are last question if there's one thing you want to be known for at the end of your life what do you want to be known for difficult to say not the one to build the most but the one

that build the best and with best everyone has his own interpretation so to me the challenge is with myself and how we can with my team to build always something that is better than the previous that we did so really we don't feel the competition with the others we feel just the fee we feel the competition with ourselves and what we can and how we can push the limit the boundaries of the physics to give well to build love and passion into what we are building in this moment so

That's beautifully said. Beautifully said. Thank you for taking your time this morning. Well, our morning, but you're in the afternoon and talking to us. This is beautiful. We're excited to see you in Lusail next year, early next year. Yeah. We appreciate your time. Yeah, Lali, I think, I think we have a new perspective on how track design is, uh, is done in the mentality. You know, it's not just engineering. It's it's a balance. It's a blend of science, art, passion, passion. Passion. You don't think about it when you look at it.

I guess, Vincenzo, I guess that you're coming from Italy and some, the name and the surname. The fact is that Italians are artisans. Of course. We have small companies, very, very, very specialized, few numbers, like a boutique design firm. So the basic is that we grill like this. We go by night harvesting olives to do the perfect, the best olive oil that you can do in the world. We are building, well, wood things with crafts that no one else has, ceramics.

We are famous for these kinds of things, not different. Simply another place where we are doing it. Another craft. Bringing Italian design everywhere. Yeah, another craft. Correct. Same passion, same... How do you say it in Italian?

Things that you make by hand are artesanias. Artigianali. Artigianali. So, yeah, it's just trying because we have the... Why? Because Italians normally do not work very well in teams. They, they have peculiar people. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anglo-Saxon are working much better in team, you know? So we are building in this way because we need to be few, very specialized. And what we are trying to do is applying the same principle, but improving our teamwork skillset in respect of a regular company in this field. Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us. It was an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Thank you. and yeah and we'll see you we'll see you definitely see you there guys ciao okay don't hang up don't hang up we need you to stay there