f1 australian grand prix 2025 🏁

[hyojungss]

albert park, melbourne, victoria • march 12-16
(brief twitter thread b/c i was too lazy to curate)

planning/logistics

i visited australia in nov 2023 and in my blog post about it i said “i'm dropping hints that i want to go to aus gp 2025”.... here we are!!

even before the 2025 calendar dropped we were already planning for this. aus gp accidentally leaked that it would be the season opener (because of ramadan timing) and using context clues kaia booked refundable hotels in the melbourne cbd for multiple weekends. when the calendar was published we moved to booking flights … this was all in like march-april of 2024. we decided to pair melbourne with a sydney visit beforehand for food, shopping, etc.

in october 2024 the tickets went on sale. we decided to go for the brabham grandstand (turn 1) which had a list price of $750 AUD for a 4-day ticket. i have a document tab with the track map and all the turns and their qualities listed including how many overtakes there were in the 2024 race. in retrospect i'm not really sure why brabham is so highly rated. let me interlude…

brabham

pros:
great accessibility to food/engagement zones, access-restricted portable toilets, seats rather than bleachers, close view of cars above catch fencing (note that this only applies to the top half of brabham seats), cars crashed at turn 1/2

isack hadjar formation lap crash

cons:
like… no overtakes!, not close enough to view podium via track invasion, “view time” for cars is only about 4-6 seconds each

turn 1 view, oscar piastri

i loved that the amenities were right there but i'm just surprised f1 fans care more about that than the racing?? maybe i misinterpreted the reviews… or maybe albert park is mostly gs with catch fencing blocking your view and this is the best of it. it's not that i didn't know about the lack of overtakes. i did go around on thursday when grandstand access is free for everyone and check out a few of the other grandstands near the main straight (fangio, prost iirc) and the views didn't impress me idk… ig i’m just a cota turn 12 girl

ticketmaster was foul this year and introduced dynamic pricing, so if i'm not mistaken the top half of brabham was all inflated pricing when i got through the queue. i was indecisive and flirted with a base price option that was closer to the middle of brabham but it fell through before i claimed it. in the end i got a pair of seats in row v, which is the top non-premium row of the gs. the price for two seats was $2,305.45 in AUD, $1,580.38 in USD. 😞 $790 is about $200 more than what we paid for montreal ($595) and if we bought the tickets at the list price it would have been $514 USD… however if we were gonna pay that much at least we got the best value for it (high seats). i am going to be more budget conscious for our next gp, wherever that ends up being, this felt like a targeted splurge.

brabham faces west (i think…) so morning sessions were shaded and around 1pm the sun rose high enough to reach us. we had the fortune of the premium suite seating (which is covered) being right behind us. unfortunately most of the sessions we attended were in the afternoon LOL and sunday was rainy so it was actually worse being right where all the water drips off the roof. alas… it is what it is.

sunday morning rain is falling...

experience at the circuit

in a lot of ways melbourne was like a hybrid of austin and montreal as a track experience. we took the tram to get to the track, which was a bit more confusing than the montreal metro because they had designated routes but ultimately very convenient. the tram took us right to gate 1 which gets you close to one of the food/activity zones but there's still an overpass to cross to get to the fan forum which you really get to know when you spend two mornings running to get a spot at gates open. the worst crowd was probably trying to get out of gate 1 right after quali… a mistake!!

melbourne was NOT supposed to be as hot as austin 2023 was and yet it really felt like it, especially on friday and saturday (return to hell). then sunday was even more cold and rainy than montreal was! i was so miserable omg. we were shivering 24 hours after 90 degree weather… during fp3 i remember hiding under kaia's blanket from the sun so i wouldn't get burned

forecast… saturday wasn’t actually 100° but lol

thursday was a support series only day and we skipped the on track action in favor of collecting freebies and stepping out to go to queen victoria market in the middle of the day. honestly i'm sad that idgaf about f2 or f3 this year… we tried to go to most of those sessions if they didn't conflict with f1 engagements but i know i will not be waking up at 4am for races this year like i did for ollie.

lots of seating areas and decent shade. the rain coverage was poor since a lot of the picnic table “roofs” had holes in them… but it's part of the experience ok. kaia brought a blanket to sit on the grass/walkways. the water stations were so good though!! a few around the circuit with multiple spouts and the water was cool & filtered 💕 so much better than cota! they didn't seem to have real bathrooms but i didn't hate the portable toilets… except that they kept running out of toilet paper midday >_< always keep tissues with u!! cell service was also very good!

charles/lewis fan forum... loved this... they have fun chemistry

engagements were actually a lot of fun… none (?) of that ai yearbook slop from cota and they made every activity unique even if they weren't all fun. george hated the mercedes quiz so much and i can't blame him. i personally loved the ferrari blurry track quiz. i think i'm getting too old for the queuing… but i love my photos. the aston martin one was also fun for dynamics reasons. i saw this in real time and immediately thought of ren…

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

for freebies let's see… we got an amex radio again which was really useful as the commentary at brabham was only audible if there were no cars lol. then the amex experience thing had some activities we saw in montreal and gave away popcorn + soap(?) + stick-on patches! this was crasy cause i got in line and saw the cute designs and when it was my turn the guy was like you can choose THREE!

lego had a car building station but the cars were smaller and the line was longer than montreal’s mclaren collab. the upside is that u can customize your own car (if you aren't a mclaren fan) but the car is just more generic and less cute. very effective marketing for the new sets though ..

la roche posay gave away 3ml samples of sunscreen which was rly nice cause i could stop carrying the full size one i brought hehe.. (i collected 2 twice)

indomie had a tent omg and u could win indomie and indomie merch (i flopped at the game but it's fine. i have integrity) there was also free lemonade and kaia got a tire keychain from a reaction test game… oh and free coke zero if u recycled an empty bottle!! melbourne sponsorships 😊

the food options were actually lovely imo… a lot of the stalls were pop-ups for local places i’d heard of while researching what to eat in the city (eg lune, hochi mama) and it felt like we got to use lunchtime as an opportunity to try more good food rather than generic stuff. or in my case i got to eat sushi hub on track…. i love sushi hub 💗 i could have eaten sushi hub or its competitors quite a few more times on this trip without getting sick of it… there were simply not enough MEALS. and the gp price markups didn't feel that egregious relative to prices on the street (it helps that we're reading these in USD).

bincho boss food stand

(off-track)

not on track but my favorite foods readily available in sydney and melbourne were seared salmon nigiri, asian-inspired gelato, deep fried skewers and MALATANG (non-spicy, bone broth). yes u read that right kaia… u just can't get these four things where i live like u can over there… ironically i got a bit pastry-ed out and i should have eaten more gelato instead… my favorite singular dish i ate was this fine dining prawn toast though it was amazinggggg.

prawn toast ♡

another side note about food: we kept skipping breakfast because of gates open time and i was subsisting on vacuum sealed chicken soup quail eggs and bakkwa. (and turtle chips.) but this worked out really well bc i wasn't allowed to bring those back to the us anyway LMAO

my biggest regret is not trying kori ice cream… T___T look at these flavors!! i had hareruya pantry at least which is also japanese gelato… their mango yuzu was delightful…

kori ice cream menu

in the city we didn't have time to really look for f1 popups although i know there were some. we totally skipped the williams fanzone this year because there was enough other stuff to do and we've seen it twice. there were a lot of f1 ads.

the race itself

frankly it was really entertaining because of the variable wet weather, but like montreal and even cota the end result of the race was no different than what pre-season testing would have predicted. idk what's worse though, having your fave driver get a dsq after losing places through tire strategy, having your fave driver dnf from a terrible car and tire strategy and engine problems right after he wins a race, or having your fave driver lose places through tire strategy AND have a terrible car that will probably stay bad for the rest of the season. you have to laugh! at least he finally got points… and ollie didn't crash (on sunday. he crashed on friday and saturday) … during the race which is more than 4/6 other rookies can say. :]

me taking ollie pc photo during ollie’s first crash-induced red flag of the weekend :) + fan forum

track invasion was nice but they waited so long to open it near brabham…? we didn't get in until after the podium was over and it just felt like a really long time…

drivers' parade… meh

packing list

• sunscreen, leclerc hat, disposable poncho, lightweight jacket: it's the variable weather that kills u… the ponchos were leftover from montreal and even more useful here. idk if i would have bought them if we hadn't gone to montreal.


• ferrari merch: a few weeks ago i finally caved to the lewis/ferrari hype and bought not only the new 2025 vintage jacket but also a 2024 team kit shirt and jacket. i think they're all cute but i should have skipped the 2024 jacket because it doesn't have a hood and that limits its usefulness. when is it ever cold at an f1 race without risk of rain?? anyway i'm never buying merch again… hold me to this please. ferrari has conned me already


• sneakers: LOL these were great for the whole trip until sunday. they got absolutely drenched and it was horrible until i could get back to the hotel and swap to my second pair of shoes (not rain boots)… kaia can attest to me washing them and spending an hour blow drying them until they were dry enough to wear home the next day


• power bank, water bottle, snacks, electrolyte packets


• crescent bag, tote bag: i packed a little bit lighter than montreal and i thought it worked out very well. my tote bag was better at holding shape and could fit the crescent in it, and i didn't bring as much useless nonsense. the thing that was a bit annoying was i brought my foam seat cushion from montreal and i had to bring it around separately once it got too dirty to put back in the bag. but i left that at the hotel on sunday… #onebagging


• earplugs: i did use these a bit for f3 and one of the support series… protect your ears everyone!!

schedule

thursday

• 9:00 AM: left hotel
• 9:45 AM: gate 1
• (browsed food stalls, freebies etc)
• 11:30 AM: lined up for lego
• 12:30 PM: finished at lego 😑
• (left the circuit to get lunch)
• 4:00 PM: f2/f3 fan forum
• (browsed the circuit some more)

friday

• 7:15 AM: left hotel
• 7:30 AM: tram to gate 1
• 8:00 AM: gate 1
• 8:30 AM: gates open & running for a good fan forum view
• 10:25 AM: fan forum
• 12:00 PM: lunch
• 12:30 PM: fp1
• 2:00 PM: f3 quali
• 4:00 PM: fp2
• 5:30 PM: f2 quali

saturday

• 6:40 AM: left hotel
• 7:05 AM: gate 1
• 7:30 AM: get in an altercation with other gp attendees about how you are cutting them in line
• 8:30 AM: gates open
• 10:15 AM: fan forum
• 11:15 AM: f3 sprint
• 12:30 PM: fp3
• 1:30 PM: lunch
• 2:15 PM: f2 sprint
• 4:00 PM: quali
• 5:00 PM: quali ends
• 7:00 PM: finally get back to the hotel after an hour of gate 1 crowding and an hour of walking

sunday

• 8:15 AM: left hotel
• 8:45 AM: get to seats
• 9:00 AM: f3 feature (delayed)
• 10:00 AM: lunch 4 me
• 11:30 AM: f2 feature (cancelled due to the rain) & getting absolutely soaked in rainwater
• 1:00 PM: drivers’ parade
• 3:00 PM: race
• 5:45 PM: track invasion
• 7:00 PM: back to the hotel (we took gate 3 and it was pretty calm)

turn 2 crash zone