Are you a motorsport fan? Do you follow Formula 1? If you answered no to these questions, I recommend you quickly go on Netflix and watch a few episodes of Drive to Survive, then you will understand more easily why I drove over 1,000 km for a Formula 1 Grand Prix. I leave you right here a trailer:
Moving on, I’m a fan of motorsport and I’ve been watching Formula 1 before the Netflix series. One of the distant memories from my childhood is me with my parents in the early 2000s, sitting together on the couch watching Michael Schumacher win a race in the rain in the red Scuderia Ferrari car. From there, any round object I picked up in my hand would have turned me into a Formula 1 driver. From plates to basins, with the help of an extremely rich imagination, I drove single-seaters just like Schumacher, all my childhood. It’s possible that this is what made me take the decision to study automotive engineering later in life, so be careful what media you let your kids consume, you could be decisively inspiring them.
Furthermore, the desire to watch live a Formula 1 Grand Prix probably began to form since then, so that only recently did I understood what such participation entails. Honestly, a trip from Romania for such an event involves a cost to be taken into account, judging with the mind of a rational person. If you ask me, I’d go to every race on the calendar, because it’s worth it.
Okay, now let’s see how I got to Austria this summer for Formula 1, what I did well and what I didn’t do well. Maybe this information will help someone at some point.
The plot of this trip has a romantic connotation, which doesn’t necessarily include me, I’m more practical than romantic. Maria, Ionuț’s partner, both very good friends of mine, thought of making a surprise for her dear partner, giving him a trip to a Formula 1 Grand Prix for his birthday. Because Ionuț and I had been saying for a year or so that we were going to go to a Formula 1 race, obviously without doing anything in this direction, it took a moment of feminine incisiveness to give the spark that led to the materialization of this dream. In Romanian, we needed a woman put us to work, or rather she put me to work, communicating her intention to me, and your event architect began to deal with planning and organization.
The first step, the purchase of tickets. Here I do not recommend that you proceed as we did. We somehow bought the tickets in a hurry, in May for the end of June, and the website used was viagogo.com. Why don’t I recommend? Well, tickets for these events or at least the one in Austria are being sold in waves by the organizer. Websites like viagogo.com, between these waves, when you can’t find tickets for sale from the organizer, they take your money and promise you that they will buy you a ticket from the organizer. All well and good, the problem is that their addition starts at 50% and who knows where it stops. We paid around 150 euros for some tickets that would have normally cost 100 euros. The second counter-recommendation: do not buy the cheapest tickets, because they assume that you will not have a seat to sit on. Yes, it’s nice to be able to walk around, but it’s not as nice to stand for more than 6 hours a day for 3 days and not be able to see much because of the crowding by the fence. Or, if you really want the cheap tickets, take a fisherman’s chair with you and maybe some grandfather who will go to the circuit at 07.00 in the morning and plant a row of seats by the circuit fence. But, because we are Romanians, we managed and saw from pretty good positions, all the important moments, with some leg pain at the end of the day.
The second step, booking the accommodation. Here, happiness works on the principle, the sooner the better. In May, for the end of June, I found the nearest decent accommodation in terms of quality / price, at 117 km from the circuit. And decent means that for 3 people, we paid 480 euros for 3 nights and got a two-bedroom apartment, generous living room, generous kitchen, bathroom, terrace, all set in an Austrian mountain village of 500 inhabitants where neither not even a leaf dared not stay in its place. The trip overall was great, but the cottage where we stayed was brilliant, I’ll leave the link here maybe who knows, you might be interested, I understand that in the winter there is an interesting ski resort there.
The third step, transport. Because we are young and restless and because we wanted freedom, we decided to drive there, about 1250 Kilometers. Obviously, the distance would be covered in two days, on the way to Austria we stayed one night in Budapest and on the way back we stayed one night in Timișoara. And here we chose the economical, but tiring option. I think in total the fuel cost was no more than 600 euros, but the drive was quite tiring. The interesting part was in Austria though, on their roads through the mountains and not to mention the highways.
Having said that, at the end of May we were ready, tickets bought, accommodation reserved. Then the big day came and we hit the road, first stop Budapest. We were also lucky enough to rent an apartment right in the old city center. I honestly didn’t expect it, but I liked Budapest to the extent that I managed to discover it in one evening. The world was extremely relaxed, many people were walking on the banks of the Danube and in the old center there was an effervescence comparable to that in Bucharest.
The next day of travel arrived and we quickly boarded for our drive to the Red Bull Ring. Now, I know that these days we have something to share with the Austrian politicians who don’t want us in Schengen, but the truth is that when we crossed the border from Hungary to Austria, without any control, the landscape changed. It wasn’t my first time in Austria, I’ve been to Vienna a few times before, but the opportunity to drive through a country, I think helps you understand its culture and civilization a little more. Throughout my stay there, I came to the conclusion that Austrians are very disciplined people, and I liked that.
Finally, after discovering how to drive without any problem on a highway under construction and after passing through tunnels dug in mountains equal in length to the number of kilometers of highway inaugurated in Romania in the last 10 years (exaggerating here), I arrived at the Red Bull Ring, where I discovered another example of discipline. In addition to the fact that you had the map of the parking lots available in the Red Bull Ring app, 30 km before of the circuit, on the highway we could see signs directing us to the parking lots according to the color of the tickets.
I parked and we walked to the circuit, about a 30-minute walk. Then, what to see, another example of discipline, no exaggerated queue, everything placed in its place. I admit, we had the inspiration and luck to choose a weekend where on the Red Bull Ring we had a Formula 1 Sprint race, a Formula 2 Sprint race, Formula 3 but also the Porsche Supercup. Practically, the circuit was populated almost at any time, from Friday to Sunday.
About the experience on the spot, I have nothing to write about it because this is not possible, this must be experienced. The sound of the engines, the incredible braking ability of the cars, the atmosphere, you name it, you have to go if you like motorsport, period.
After the first day where we were excited to the max, we started to realize what it means to stay over 100 km from the circuit, with all their highways, you lost 90 minutes on a one-way road. Finally, we arrived at the accommodation marveling at the beauty of the landscape and like any prudent Romanian, we had in the trunk a refrigerated box in which a significant number of traditional ”mici” had traveled with us from Romania. We had been through Austria before and knew that the people were good at roads, but not so much at food, or at least not to our taste. In terms of food, breakfast and dinner were the main meals, prepared at the accommodation. At the circuit, you couldn’t really find food that tasted good and was even remotely healthy. Lots of schnitzels, sausages and fries, all served very efficiently and yet there were considerable queues, especially on Saturdays and Sundays.
On Saturday, the second day of the Grand Prix, we had time to better study the surroundings of the circuit. I saw a lot of camping areas, full of Dutch people, and around the circuit a very cool stage was organized where a party was going non-stop. I think the experience of camping near the circuit really ensures maximum fun at the expense of rest and comfort. From an age, it’s not what it used to be. Also on Saturday, the day of the Formula 1 Sprint race, it even rained a little to make things more interesting.
I don’t have much to say about the actual events on the circuit because, as happened in most races in 2023, Max won by half a minute ahead of the next driver.
All in all, the experience for me was a very interesting one, with all the shortcomings, I don’t regret anything, I’m very happy that I had the opportunity to do it, but further I know very clearly that the next Grand Prix I will participate in will be mandatory at Monza in Italy.
If you are thinking of going to Austria in the coming years, I heartily recommend it, the organization of the event is extraordinary, the queues are extremely bearable for a gathering of over 40,000 people and the circuit is one of the most beautiful available in the current Formula 1 calendar. The total costs per person for the configuration we chose in 2023, were somewhere around 1,000 euros, with absolutely everything included.
