Cascais Council working towards Formula 1 in Estoril in 2028

Cascais Council is negotiating with the holding that manages public companies, Parpública, to get the management licence for the Estoril Circuit for €12.5 million for a period of up to 75 years.

The local authority has drawn up a plan that foresees, if the proposal is accepted, a public tender to get private investors to invest €150 million with the ambition of returning Formula 1 to the racetrack that entered the public domain in 1997.

The amount on the table was calculated based on “the valuations that Parpública made of the asset”, although these point to an amount that is “a little higher”, admits the mayor for whom “Parpública has, at this moment, everything it needs to be able to decide to hand over the surface rights and management to the municipality of Cascais”.

According to Jornal de Negócios (paid access), Cascais Mayor Nuno Piteira Lopes also acknowledges that it is “absolutely necessary” to make improvements “throughout the infrastructure” – from the paddock to the bathrooms.

This is not the first time that Cascais Council, which until the last local council elections was run by PSD party mayor Carlos Carreiras, has tried to buy the Estoril Autodrome.

In 2015, the council offered to buy the autodrome for around €5 million but the deal was rejected by Portugal’s public spending and auditing watchdog Tribunal de Contas (Court of Accounts).