Vuelta director shuts down F1 rumours and protest links as 2026 finale heads to Granada

The route was unveiled in Monaco on Wednesday, with the Principality hosting the Grand Départ before the race moves through France and Andorra and into Spain. From there, the narrative quickly shifts south. The second half is rooted in Andalusia, taking in familiar host cities, before the race builds towards a Sierra Nevada finale and a finish in Granada instead of Madrid.

Guillén’s focus is less on the missing Madrid finish and more on how the race is built. He points to the penultimate mountain day as the moment designed to decide the general classification, centred on a new finish. “The penultimate stage should be the decisive one in the fight for the overall victory, with that new Alto del Alguacil,” he said to Ciclo21. 

He pushed back on the idea that Granada signals a new normal. “I do not see the Vuelta finishing many times outside Madrid. Our natural finish is Madrid,” he said in an interview with MARCA, adding that exceptions will only happen if they match the scale of what the race wants.

One theory around the change has been the arrival of Formula 1 in Madrid, but Guillén dismissed that link. “No. It had been planned for a long time not to finish in Madrid, even before the Formula 1 dates were announced,” he said. “Formula 1 is not an obstacle for the Vuelta.”

Guillén also insists the 2026 script was not rewritten in response to last year’s protests. Asked whether the pro Palestinian demonstrations that disrupted the race played any role in the design, his answer was blunt. 

“No. Routes are not improvised,” he said, explaining that much of the work was already in motion well before the 2025 edition even started. “We wrote a script and have been able to present it exactly as we conceived it.”

In the background, there is the usual calendar debate, with occasional proposals to reshuffle the traditional order of the Grand Tours. Guillén is not interested. “The Vuelta is happy with its dates and does not want to change them,” he said. “Everyone knows that in May there is the Giro, in July the Tour, and in August the Vuelta, and that is an asset we should not change.”

He did allow himself one clear note of ambition: the hope that Tadej Pogačar could show up. “We speak with the team and maintain an excellent relationship,” he said, highlighting his contact with Joxean Matxín. “The fact that he has not said he is not coming is already important,” Guillén added, before pitching the opening as a selling point: “Starting in Monaco could make it easier.”

Finally, when asked if this is the hardest Vuelta in history, Guillén did not chase the label. Instead, he returned to what he wants the route to be. “I will not deny that it is a demanding Vuelta,” he said. “Above all, it is a Vuelta designed with the spectator in mind.”