Traveled: June 2016

Surviving (and having the best time of your life) at the Formula 1 Canada Grand Prix with General Admission tickets.

I have to admit up front that I am not an avid F1 fan. Actually the first (and only) F1 race I have seen was this one. I went as a birthday gift to my sister, who is very much an avid fan. I wanted to take her to race, but you know me, the budget it tight! So I checked out both the Canadian Grand Prix and the US one. The US one (in Texas) was far and above more expensive than the Canada one. So that is why it was chosen. She had never been to a race, so any would do at this point.

 
So the start of research began, how to get there, where to stay, what to wear. What should we bring to the race? The how to get there, and the where to stay turned out to be (somewhat) easy. But the race information got difficult. It would seem that there isn’t a whole lot of people blogging about the experience, General Admission or otherwise. So here is my experience and tips!

Tickets:

We chose the general admission tickets because, well, I’m cheap. Plus we figured this being our first time, we would want to check the place out and wander a lot. This worked for the most part. However, this track is not set up well at all for general admission, sorry budgeters. The view points are limited at best and there just isn’t many to choose from. The biggest issue is the lack of screens. F1 tracks are long, like over a mile, so there is no way any seat gets you a view of more than 1/8th of the track. Therefore a big screen, showing you all the good passes, stalls, pit stops and bumps is very important. Only about half of the general admissions viewpoints had a screen.

All that being said, it was still a lot of fun! So if that is all you can afford, do it. But if you can spend the little bit extra, grab a bleacher seat. They look pretty uncomfortable, but it would be worth it. Don’t worry, you can still wander as much as you’d like.

Here are some of the views we checked out:

Food:

Bring your own. We did not. We were staying at a hostel and well, we were lazy. We ended up buying a few different food items while at the track. The food has a reputation for being bad and well, it is. We will start with the worst, the cheeseburger. It was the cheapest at $5ish. It was the worst burger I have ever had, but edible. Next would be the bagel. The bagel itself wasn’t too bad but I got the smoked meat option (I mean, we were in Montreal!) and it was not hot, at all. Suprisingly good was the pizza cone! Think of taking a slice of pizza and rolling it into a cone. It was definitely fast-food-ish but was very good for what it was. The best was, of course, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream! Which was it’s delicious self.

All of these were between $5 and $10. So not outrageously expensive for event food, but definitely not budget friendly if you will be there all day.

Clothes:

Check the weather and plan for changes. Our weather showed warm but wet, then less wet, then less wet and less warm. Friday was beautiful and I got sunburned, Saturday was chilly, Sunday was downright cold! My sister bought a sweater just to add a layer. My best advice, take a backpack with layers just in case and plan for 10 degrees colder and warmer than expected.

Pack:

We brought a backpack with us. We used it mainly for extra layers of clothing, water and purchased souvenirs. This wasn’t strictly necessary but made the day easier since we wandered around a lot. There are water fountains around the track. We used them to fill our water bottles. In hindsight I would have also brought a blanket to sit on or a folding chair. They do allow you to bring in folding chairs (if you are general admission), a cooler (must fit under the bleacher, even if you are general admission and don’t get one of those), and any beverage/food you want. That is right, ANY beverage. This includes alcohol. However no glass is allowed.

After:

Stick around just after the podium because they open the track to everyone! We were able to walk the entire track, which was awesome in itself but also lets you see all the parts that you couldn’t see from the sidelines.

That about wraps it up. I would highly suggest anyone interested in F1 to attend a race. It was a great crowd and we had a lot of fun! Even for a non-fan. See my Montreal blog for more information on what to do in town!