f1 grand prix du canada 2024 @ circuit gilles villeneuve

[hyojungss]

🏁 formula 1 canadian grand prix @ circuit gilles villeneuve (montreal, qc) 🏁
june 7-9, 2024


(image-heavy post)

(twitter thread)

 

planning/logistics

• after cota (10/2023), kaia and i decided to go to montreal in 2024. montreal tickets go on sale sometime in the summer, about 10-11 months before the event. so kaia did a lot of research on grandstand options and resale sites (owe her everything <3) and in february 2024 we bought two tickets at gs 15 (turn 10, the hairpin) for $595 USD each, via gpticketshop (3rd party retailer). the major downside of buying “resale” from a vendor like that is that you don’t get to choose your seats... so we could have gotten awful seats (in f1, awful seats are the low ones, because the fence blocks your view of the track and you can see less of it).


• about 2 weeks before the event kaia got the tickets, and our seats were GS15, section 4, row P, seat 8/9! row P is quite good because starting from the lowest, section 4 has rows AA-ZZ and then A-Z. that means row P is 42 from the bottom of the gs.


• kaia handled the hotel booking and it was perfect <3 day 1 was in the part of downtown closest to the williams fan zone and pop-up merch shops, and the race weekend hotel was super close to the berri-uqam train station (1 stop from jean drapeau, the closest metro stop to the circuit), so the commute was super easy.

location of our seats

packing list

once again i read a million reddit posts and they were quite helpful. i don’t know why it shocks me that f1 fans are generally on point with their recommendations but it’s probably good because it means climate change hasn’t yet drastically altered the average of thousands’ of fans’ experiences at 40 years of races in montreal....

• sunscreen, disposable ponchos, hat, umbrella, raincoat: this week montreal vacillated between sun, rain, and hail :) the forecast was quite scary (50-90% rain each day) so i packed an umbrella, but didn’t bring it to track to save on weight. it turns out montreal’s idea of rain is just drizzle with the occasional thundershower. i brought my two-layer jacket and just kept alternating between short sleeves, single layer, both layers in 15 minute intervals (crying emoji) with the poncho on during the drizzles. i would not put sunscreen on in the morning to avoid stickiness and hope the sun didn’t come out (it would get quite sunny, of course! but not to the level where i needed sunglasses)


• if i look back on the actual weather we got, because we both had water resistant jackets, i think we would have been fine without ponchos if not for the june 7 thunderstorm. but i’m glad that we brought them because of the peace of mind!! they had rubber band cuffs and drawstring hoods which was really effective against the short periods of rain. i ended up reusing my poncho for the three days out of environmental guilt... good that they were durable enough not to tear at that level of use.


• sneakers, rain boots: my useless purchase pre-trip was a pair of rain boots! i was so scared of ruining my shoes but i think the circuit added more turf on the grounds, so there were less muddy areas than were reported in prev years. my sneakers were fine for the whole trip


• power bank: we needed this on fp1/fp2 day but i don’t think we used it on saturday. i did use it on sunday because i was planning to take a lot of videos during the race


• cooler, water, snacks: the circuit lets you bring food and water into the venue which is a lot laxer than cota claimed to be. that being said the circuit food was honestly reasonably priced. on friday i had packed a banh mi i bought the day before, but it was basically the same price as a burger at the circuit! (banh mi is a larger portion size but keeping that around is a lot more risky food-safety wise anyway.) miss kaia brought this beautiful large peanuts igloo cooler bag that held all of our snacks AND water bottles. it was incredible and i miss her <3


• we had our water bottles and gatorade packets but thankfully it was so much cooler than cota. which is also good b/c we did not have a freezer in the hotel to freeze water...


• crescent bag, tote bag: ended up getting a uniqlo crescent bag on sale prior to the trip and it really suited my travel needs... it fit most everything my regular purse does plus a passport and was easier to fit into my other baggage when needed. & more accessible on the go. i really really really did not want to wear my backpack to the circuit because of my outfits (yes i’m shallow!!) and if i packed even smarter i think i could have done without the extra tote bag at the circuit, but it was better safe than sorry


• other: didn’t need earplugs! amex did save me with their free radio/cooling towel/seat cushion handouts though.... b/c when it was cold/rainy i was wearing both my jackets (which i had sat on in austin) and when it had just rained the towel mopped up the water puddles on the bleachers. i suppose for an f1 fan in the americas that you would have a lot of fomo seeing this and it becomes very effective marketing for their credit cards 😭

bracelets i made for the race... but i was too shy to give them away 😭

schedule

wednesday

• 1:30p - arrive at williams fanzone
• 2:00p - alex on stage
• [ate dinner and window shopped]

thursday

• 6:45a - awake
• 8:05a - leave hotel and take metro
• 8:30a - arrive at cgv and queue for pit lane walk
• 9:00a - bus to pit lane, spend 90 minutes observing garages (and lowkey waiting for drivers)
• 10:45a - bus back to entrance
• [ate lunch at the mall, grocery]

exclusively got bad photos of drivers... yuki/oscar/alex

friday

• 6:00a - awake
• 8:00a - leave hotel
• 8:30a - entered cgv, went to fanzone and walked around to claim free things (lego, amex, fidelity etc)
• 11:30a - watched motocross session
• 12:30p - severe thunderstorm warning causes all grandstands to be evacuated and we huddled under a bridge for about 30 minutes
• 1:30p - free practice 1 (started on time)
• 2:30p - walked around the grounds and then sat by the pond
• 5:00p - free practice 2
• 6:00p - walked towards the metro station in a huge crowd. i carelessly let my metro card run out of trips so i had to queue to refill...
• 7:15p - arrived at dinner location (southeast asian ^__^)
• 8:45p - arrived at dessert location (croffles ^__^)
• returned to hotel

& what i thought was a cool “flip book” series of photos: (hulkenberg and sargeant)

saturday

• 7:30a - awake
• 10:00a - left hotel
• 10:30a - i sat in the monster zone and did nothing besides watch motocross and listen to dj music while kaia and her friend queued for lego mclaren
• 11:50a - left the monster zone to go to fp3
• 12:30p - free practice 3
• 1:30p - went to food trucks for lunch (dippin dots/poutine/burger)
• 4:00p - quali
• 5:00p - walked back towards metro
• 6:00p - arrived at hotel, had dinner later

beloved ollie :_)

sunday

• 7:00a - awake
• 11:00a - back at cgv
• 11:30a - went to grandstand to watch the end of ferrari challenge
• 12:00p - drivers parade
• 1:25p - drivers started to do recon laps (we did not expect this and were on the move during most of the laps)
• 1:37p - pre-race performances/dj-ing
• 2:00p - race start (on time)
• 3:45p - the race ended (longer laps due to wet conditions and safety cars)
• 4:00p - track invasion was officially opened (people had been sneaking in before the track was cleared) and we walked to about gs 31 (turn 8/9)
• 4:40p - we headed back towards the metro station
• ~5:15p - we were back at the hotel

photo 3 is rus/ver/nor and an example of the latency between real life and the broadcast... photo 5 you can see people illegally entering the circuit and an angry crowd waiting for it to be officially opened ... in photo 6 you can see grandstand 15 (we were in the upper right, from this POV)

i have in my notes that we always got ready to return to the grandstand 30 min - 1 hr before a session starts to use the bathrooms because the line time was variable... but other than that there really was a lot of waiting around aimlessly... TT although it def helped me be less tired because i could sleep in or have a relaxed morning (and we never got to do that during austin)

austin vs montreal

	austin (2023)	montreal (2024)
cost	2023: $677 USD [turn 12, face value]	2024: $595 USD [grandstand 15/turn 10, “resale”]
transportation to/from track	paid - shuttle to downtown ($150 for three days) free - shuttle to pickup/dropoff point paid - uber to lodging	metro - $3.50 CAD per trip
walking @ track	moderate - distance from bus drop off was maybe 10 minutes... distance from entry to turn 12 specifically, and distance to amphitheater was okay	moderate - distance from metro to point of entry included the concorde bridge, distance from entry to turn 10 was pretty short, distance to activity areas was not bad
track entry	lots of lines for entry and for shuttling out but they were okay	only lines to entry on pit lane day before the start time, and understandable lines for the metro after the last f1 session
weather	hell.... very sunny, occasional clouds, occasional breeze (~85 - 95 F)	cloudy, rainy, thunder, sunny, hail, windy. generally comfortable though (~55F - 75F)
sitting areas besides the grandstands	amphitheater concrete floor.... lol. or concrete walls that line stairs... or patches of grass behind the grandstands... picnic tables by the food halls	shaded grassy areas underneath tree cover. and the monster zone LOL
bathrooms	real bathrooms in multiple strategic locations	real bathrooms right by grandstand 15
cell service	pretty good most of the time but i don’t think it was good enough for f1 live timing app during an actual session	good and i could use live timing multiple times during the race
support races	f1 academy, masters historic, porsche carrera cup	ferrari challenge, porsche carrera cup
driver engagements	free - all teams (19/20 drivers) spread across two engagement sessions, plus some appearances by f1 academy, reserve/feeder series drivers and team principals	none :(
drivers parade	each team had their own unique car (two drivers per car plus a staff member)	every driver was on a truck and some took turns getting interviewed by laura winter while on the truck
williams fan zone (off-track)	downtown austin, free alex/logan/jenson button engagements iirc possibly also james vowles	downtown montreal, free alex/logan/james vowles engagements
other free activities & giveaways on the circuit grounds	mclaren x chrome had the observation tower with limited free timeslots + $30 tickets otherwise [we did not have time for this] mclaren x chrome gave away reusable water bottles and tote bags topps 5-pack driver/tp trading cards they had a friendship bracelet making tent!	mclaren x lego had a car building station fidelity gave away water tumblers and cheap tote bags monster zone with motocross sessions and a dj and some chairs so u could sit and do nothing for literal hours... heineken zone by the pond....
amex benefits	physical radio for commentary during f1 sessions (i think this excluded free practice, so it would have been SQ, sprint, quali, race)	physical radio for commentary during fp1-3, quali, race. although my radio died with ten laps left in the race so maybe having it for all sessions was not a good thing??? snacks, lip balm, seat cushion, towel...
food availability/policy	bringing in food/coolers was not allowed one factory-sealed water bottle per guest (poorly enforced) food was relatively expensive... i think $11 for a hot dog and $17+ for “entrees”	bringing in food and coolers was totally allowed, just no alcohol food was decently priced with food truck and stand options ranging from $10-$25 CAD or more if you wanted like a lobster roll
pit lane walk	restricted to select season ticket holders + f1 experience package holders	free but limited - must apply for lottery ahead of time [up to 2 hours of pit lane time depending on what time you lined up early]
post-race track invasion	free - seems like the track was open for approx 1 hour after the race, and then they started kicking people off the start/finish straight	free - the gp organizer is getting investigated for failing to secure the track until it was safe for the invasion though so maybe it’ll be cancelled next year x___x not sure how long it was open because we only spent about 30 mins on track
city/airport f1 spirit	the city had a few ads but i don’t remember seeing any popup merch shops. but also maybe we didn’t go to those areas kaia said the airport had an f1 showcar on arrival... it also had a ton of f1 related advertising and some merch	downtown near the williams fan zone there were a lot of f1 merch popup shops and ads there were random checkered flags on hotels and restaurant storefronts LOL ferrari also did a peroni popup with a showcar... there were some street festivals but we did not go the airport really had no f1 decor or advertising

 

they both kind of had huge pros and cons.... austin was a sprint race, so we got to see double the action/meaningful events... but the sprint happened to be super boring and the race was alright. the montreal sessions were all pretty interesting because of the weather variability, and the race was really well rated by tv watchers. both had max wins and a semblance of competition. but charles flopped at both races for multiple reasons that were not his fault, so that really dampened my enjoyment of both weekends T___T i would say i’m generally a fan of a majority of the grid and i can root for them to different levels, but having shifted to being more of a ferrari fan than i used to be (because i used to just be a charles fan but the more you like charles the more you have to like every element of ferrari - after all he has always loved ferrari and the red car...) makes it so hard to be happy when other teams do better than them even when i like the drivers 😭

the weather was 100x more unbearable in austin, even with the on-again off-again rain to consider in montreal, it was just so much more comfortable to be anywhere on the grounds, whereas in cota we could not wait to get off the grandstands lol. i got better track pictures at cota because we were closer to the track (i'm pretty sure we could read the driver numbers at austin, and i couldn't read a single one at montreal. we were relying on t-cam colors) and yet had a larger range of view, whereas in montreal i had like two angles of the hairpin that were worth looking at and that’s it. cota turn 12 is good for overtakes, and less moves happened at the hairpin this weekend (this post says 6 out of 48). but sitting at a hairpin was very cool conceptually and still allowed for a lot of “view time” because it’s such a slow corner. also the track is shorter than cota, so we saw the cars more frequently (70 laps vs 56 at cota)

parasocially a mixed bag as well... not having the engagements at cgv was a huge loss in my opinion. and i’m annoyed the promoters didn’t just announce that they weren’t doing them this year when they have in the past, and most of the other races have them. holding our spots for the engagements and being at them actually took up a large chunk of our weekend at cota so ironically (hyperbole) it made it feel like there was nothing to do at montreal. the flip side of this is we got to spend 3.5 days at montreal because of the thursday pit lane walk, which is probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience that we got for free. if we didn’t win the pitlane ticket lottery i would have been less impressed by the value of the weekend package T___T

the pit lane walk was extremely cool because of all the car parts and mechanics you could see up close. including sauber’s practice pitstops! and we did get to see some of the drivers (we both saw oscar, lando, danny ric, and alex - i saw yuki and kaia saw nico hulkenberg) and particularly for oscar, kaia got to see him much closer than we would have at an engagement stage. but to me it’s much more enjoyable when they are contractually obligated to perform talk show duties in front of the fans rather than fans feeling like they are bothering the drivers by making them stop to sign things or take pictures when they’re busy....! i’m also just salty because i got a lot of driver pictures last year and really not many during the pit lane walk. but i’m very grateful that i got both of these experiences and i know that it’s more than what many other fans get in their lifetimes... and i need to grow up!

not caring about ferrari challenge/porsche cup also sucked... i love my feeder series (and my new post-f1 series: wec... but anyway) and not having engagements for the non-existent feeders too becomes double the loss. cota this year is not going to have f1a, so to be fair they won’t have feeders either.

i feel quite like i did about seventeen’s 2022 bets tour... i really enjoyed the experience and i love f1 a lot, but in reflection, when you have seen something before in a similar capacity (svt’s first na arena tour @ oty 2020) you become a lot more negative about the things you lose, moreso than you become positive about the things that are better.

if you asked which race i recommended for an american fan that wants a holistic experience, i might still say cota if montreal doesn’t guarantee the engagements return next year, because cota is also doing a sprint in 2024.... but it’s close. cota is definitely more expensive assuming you have to fly to both races, but it’s not a worse racing track than montreal is... if the engagements and sprints are not valuable to you then the choice is pretty easily montreal (unless you are scared of french speakers!)

kaia and i are hoping to go to australia 2025 which will be incredible for multiple reasons (first race of the season, first race of lewis @ ferrari, f2 and f3 supporting, oscar home race, potentially ollie first haas race) and i am just begging ferrari to be competent. (monkey’s paw curls and charles gets crashed out on the first corner) i need to stop doomposting. thank you for reading T____T

appendix: food log

 

• wednesday: japanese curry, popcorn chicken, gyoza, okonomiyaki @ dondonya (disappointing... the popcorn chicken was good)

 

• thursday: samosas and rigatoni bolognese @ time out market, chicken burger, pho, papaya salad & pandan creme brulee @ la belle tonki

 

• friday: char kuay teow & mee kola @ satay brothers, banana brulee croffle + green grape croffle @ dessert coreen crofre

 

• saturday: xiao long bao & dumplings @ sammi & soupe dumpling

 

• sunday: alfredo/pesto & pizza @ el pasta man
• monday: pizza & chicken burger @ le central food court, beef wrap @ shawarmaz

...i intend to make an f1 merch dw post but the thought of the photography and embedding is exhausting... one day!

Comments

[arundels]

this is such a fun and informational post, thank you for sharing! I have been watching f1 for soooo long but have never been to a race, part of me thinks that the experience of trying to follow a race must be so much harder / less enjoyable in person than on broadcast, but reading this I kinda get that maybe it's more of the overall experience and the fan engagement with the drivers rather than strictly the race aspects of it? anyway I feel like I kinda get it now haha. it also seems like you had a really nice time and I'm so glad! hope you get to go to many more races and see many more drivers :)

[hyojungss]

thank you ally! it's definitely like going to a concert - you can't see as well as you can if you watch a fancam or music show performance or 4k dance video... but it's about being in the same space as other people that love the thing you do, and being a part of an Event (there will never be another 2024 canadian grand prix, and i think that makes it even more special than a concert)... i would even have a lot of joy seeing someone with f1 merch on the street. i think particularly in the us where f1 isn't that mainstream it just doesn't feel like that big of a thing, so seeing real people all in one place that love f1 is an amazing feeling.

i hope you get to go to a race just to experience that! or not if you don't want to, bc for sure it is a lot of $ to spend for a worse sports watching experience haha. but at least it comes with seeing different cultures... i love that every venue & city has unique aspects to the weekend!