I started watching F1 back in 2019 when my roommate at the time, Lorenzo, put up the 2019 Brazil Grand Prix on our living room TV. That race was pretty exciting, with a lot of retirements and racing incidents, and a career-first podium for Pierre Gasly to boot. At the time I didn’t know that such excitement was the exception not the rule, but I still started watching the races off and on since then.
Two years ago, Lorenzo, a few other friends, and I decided that we should try and see a race in person. We looked at buying tickets to the closest race to us in Montreal, and discovered that even half a year from the event we were already too late. All the grandstand tickets were sold out, and only available at scalped prices way more expensive than what we were willing to pay. We learned our lesson though, and for this year’s race we booked lodging and tickets almost a year in advance.
Thursday 🔗
I had a long drive ahead of me. Lorenzo stayed at my apartment the previous night, having driven up from Connecticut. The plan was to go to my work, pick up my other friend Ian, then drive up to Vermont to pick up one of his friends, Sean, before making our way to our AirBnB in Montreal. All four of us went to the same college together at the same time, but we hadn’t all met until now.
After about four hours, we had made it to Burlington, where incidentally, Sean lived just a few miles down the road from where I stayed when I was here for the eclipse. He and Ian were also there at the same time, and I never knew. Small world.
It started to rain as we made our way along the entirety of I-89 North. Past the big signs saying “Warning: Canada Ahead”, we reached the border. Miraculously, there was no line, and we got through in a few minutes. At this point it was 7:00 PM, and we’d been driving for about 6 hours. We made a quick pit stop at an A&W for some dinner. You may recognize that as a root beer brand, but in Canada it’s a whole fast food chain. The advertising was all in French, too. We sure were in Quebec.
As we got closer to the city, it got darker, and the rain got worse. That, plus navigating a dense city, construction, road signage all in French that I didn’t quite understand, and a car full of rowdy twenty-somethings made the drive to our accommodations quite harrowing. We finally parked, navigated our AirBnB host’s instructions and made it inside.
You could definitely tell that this was the bare minimum for furnishing. I got the strong feeling that everything was bought in a single trip to IKEA. And it was missing some minor, but important things like hand towels for the bathrooms and a bathmat. But we were only really here to sleep, and it’s not like any other places had vacancy after all, so this place would have to suffice.
Friday 🔗
The Friday of a race weekend is just for practice. Fittingly, the four of us decided that we were going to practice as well. We didn’t care too much about seeing a particular session, but we wanted to get acquainted with the journey to and from the circuit, so we wouldn’t have to figure it out on the much busier days. The forecast showed a bit of rain in the afternoon, but otherwise a clear day. So after a late breakfast, we started making our way to Parc Jean-Drapeau. The circuit is located on an artificial island in the middle of the St. Lawrence river. The Montreal Metro has a stop on a neighboring island, and it’s a short walk from the station to the circuit.
On this particular beautiful Friday morning, we decided to take the Concorde bridge, as it was closer to our grandstand. That was a mistake. We were in a big crowd on the bridge, that didn’t seem to be moving. We could see that traffic was moving, albeit slowly on the other bridge. We figured we were just stuck while people were getting their bags checked. After a while, the wind started to pick up, and we could see some dark clouds over the city. Still no movement in the line, except for some people ahead of us turning back and making their way back to the station. They were probably just tired of waiting in line, we thought. Then it started to drizzle.
I, along with everyone else on the bridge, brought out my trusty poncho, and put it on. Lorenzo forgot his, but he had an umbrella. It was fine. Then it started to rain a bit harder. More people turned back, muttering something about something being “cancelled”. Did they mean the practice session? The whole day? We decided we’d wait until we were at the front of the line to hear from an official source. It started to rain even harder, and the wind picked up more.
I hear some more people who are turning back saying something about “evacuating the island”. Lorenzo checks the F1 forums and there are some posts about people being stopped from entering the Metro line leading to the circuit. But still, there was no official communication from anyone. Not even a guy with a megaphone at the front of the line, so we couldn’t be sure what was going on.
Then I held out my hand and caught an airsoft pellet-sized piece of ice. It was hailing.
There we were, a massive crowd of people, huddled together outside on a bridge, during the middle of what I later learned was a severe thunderstorm warning, being hailed on. One poor guy in a red bull jersey next to me didn’t even have any rain protection whatsoever. “Do you guys know when this is going to stop?” he asked, shivering and soaking wet, when he saw we had our weather apps open. The forecast had been inaccurate, and I was not about to wait and see.
I told my group that I was turning around. A few of them wanted to stay longer, but after some prodding, they came too. I walked with my soaked sneakers back to the metro station. Miraculously, the poncho I bought from target the day earlier kept all my clothes aside from my shoes dry. My friends were not so lucky. Sean got fooled by the old “water resistant” rain coat, which leaked through all the seams. Lorenzo didn’t even have any gear beside his umbrella so he was wet from the chest down.
By the time we got back to our AirBnB and dried off our clothes, it was blue sky weather again. Just our luck. I spent what seemed like forever washing the mud off my sneakers and drying them out, but eventually they were in a wearable state again. We got some ramen for lunch, and bought some of the necessities that we lacked (like better ponchos and a bathmat). We spent the night checking out the officially sanctioned block party on Crescent street. Some overpriced drinks made everything feel better.
Saturday 🔗
Having learned our lesson from the previous day, we decided to go across the other bridge, called Cosmos, to the circuit. We were through the bag check and ticket check within a few minutes, and we actually got to get to the circuit. This was already an infinite improvement over the Friday. We made our way past the dozens of food and merch vendors and got to our grandstand. Our view was great. We were right next to a chicane so if things went well we might be able to see some moves.
We caught the final practice session for F1, and the only session to happen in dry conditions. This would make qualifying interesting, since the teams didn’t get as much data on track conditions as they would normally. Seeing the cars go by in person for the first time was wild. You could really tell when the cars were pushing vs. not. After the supporting Ferrari Challenge race, they announced that their paddock would be open for the rest of the day. Since there was nothing scheduled in the meantime, we decided that we’d go see it.
Trying to make our way from our grandstand to the hairpin was a mess. The crowds were indescribable. It was just a mass of humans acting more like a fluid than individual people. The few bridges over the track acted like huge choke points, and we waited forever to finally get across. Almost 45 minutes later, and we’re no closer to finding the paddock, and qualifying was starting soon, so we gave up. I did get to see one of the famous track groundhogs on our way back though, so that was nice.
We made it back to our grandstand for qualifying, just in the nick of time. We saw with our own eyes when Sergio Perez was eliminated in Q1, and both Ferraris were out in Q2. George Russell even got his second career pole position, and Danny Ric put up an impressive P5 in the VCARB. We decided to stick around for the Porsche race afterwards, to hopefully beat the huge crowd leaving right after qualifying and get to the metro when it was less crowded.
Just our luck that it would start raining a few laps in. We pulled out our ponchos again, but the race got red-flagged soon after. We started walking back to the metro, and caught the last few laps under the safety car from the GA area. We weren’t prepared for what would greet us at the metro station.
We saw two ways to exit. One of them had a huge line, and the other one was clear. So we took the clear one. Unbeknownst to us, that line didn’t actually go to the station. After another half our of walking around, we joined a massive crowd at the doors to the station. It probably took another hour to get onto a train. So much for waiting for the crowds to die down.
Sunday 🔗
Sunday morning was wet. I mean, compared to hail, I’ll take some rain any day, but it still wasn’t ideal. We made a long trek to get some decent Montreal-style bagels, and then started making our way to the circuit. We picked up some pre-made food from a restaurant in the park, that somehow wasn’t completely slammed with people. After that we made our way to the grandstand.
By this point I’d become pretty adept at moving around underneath my poncho while staying dry. So much so, that I was able to eat my pasta from within my poncho without it or me getting wet from the rain at all. I finished my lunch right before the race was set to start.
I saw some of the cars were doing what seemed like warmup laps around the circuit. I don’t know if this was just to dry out the racing line or what, but I’ve never seen that before in a race. It seemed like they were trying out both full wet and intermediate tires to see which ones to use for the start. Intermediate tires were the choice for all the teams except Haas, and that worked out in their favor. The first few laps saw them just absolutely out-speeding the competition. They’d overtake a car at every corner it seemed. Soon though, the track began to dry out and their lap times started decreasing again.
It wasn’t dry enough for full slick tires though. Ferrari tried to send out Leclerc on hards, but he was just sliding all over the place. After he pulled out, it was interesting to see what a battle looks like in person. Each lap you’ll see that two cars are slightly closer together or further apart. Eventually, someone will overtake, and you’ll see that on the TV they have facing the grandstand. Having the lead actually change hands between the Mercedes, Red Bull, and McLaren cars was really cool.
Towards the end of the race we got some real action by our corner. First Sergio Perez of Red Bull took a turn wide and slid backwards into our grandstand. I actually felt the impact as his car hit the barrier. Then Carlos Sainz of Ferrari took a similar spin and sent the Williams of Alex Albon into the wall. You can catch both of these moments in the highlight video at around the 6:00 minute mark.
After a last-minute pass by George Russell to regain a podium place, the race was over. We quickly started filing out of the stands, hoping not to repeat what happened the previous day at the metro station. Miraculously, we got out of the circuit in only twenty minutes, and onto a subway train another ten minutes after that. We made a reservation for some celebratory Japanese BBQ, and that was that: the Grand Prix weekend was over.
After taking the 7 hour drive back home yesterday, it’s now Tuesday, and I have to say I had a lot of fun on this trip. Hanging out with some old and new friends made it way more fun than it would have been alone. It was certainly worth the drive and the expense. What are the odds that we would have such a great race, even if we did get hit with a smidge of hail. I’m glad I went on this trip, and hopefully I’ll get to go again soon.
And next time, I’ll bring some boots.