Since I was but a small child (as my mother might say, “when I was knee high to a grasshopper”) I’ve had an interest in motorsport in varying forms. It has waxed and waned as time has progressed, but it’s always been there.
I think my first exposure to the world of motor racing would definitely have been Formula One. I don’t recall my Dad being a huge fan of it or anything like that, but it was usually on TV in our house on Sunday (race day) and I have vivid memories of that epic BBC One remix of Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain, which became pretty much the de-facto theme music for Formula One in those days.
It wasn’t just F1 that I was interested in, though. That much should be obvious from one of the cars that I drive, heavily inspired by the World Rally Championship as it is. But Formula One, as the name suggests, was always the pinnacle.
I used to while away many an hour on my Commodore Amiga playing Geoff Crammond’s Formula One Grand Prix, which was revolutionary at the time and is still being actively played today! When my brother Bob joined the ranks of early adopters of the original Sony PlayStation, I would sit there playing Psygnosis’ Formula 1.
My interest in the sport kind of dulled a little in the early to mid 2000s, during the Schumacher years where the outcome of every race was more or less a foregone conclusion, but I would keep a weather eye on each season anyway, and although I’d always wanted to go to a Grand Prix, I’d never really given it any serious consideration.
Until earlier this year, when I made a somewhat ‘last minute’ decision to take an impromptu weekend trip to Milan and Monza, for the Gran Premio d’Italia 2024.
The idea came about because I wanted to get away and do something ‘special’ for myself for my birthday this year. I don’t actually recall where I first got the idea to go to a Grand Prix specifically, but I probably saw a post on Reddit about attending one and the idea spun out from there.
Before attaching this idea to my birthday celebration for 2024, I had originally looked at Silverstone, home (of course) to the British Grand Prix, but quickly ruled that out because almost all of the tickets were sold out, and the ones that were left were really expensive. And, you know, British weather isn’t exactly famous for being reliably sunny (or even sunny at all) and I figured if I was going to go away somewhere, I wanted somewhere I could bask a little bit.
As it happened, the Italian Grand Prix at Monza was the weekend before my birthday, and the next one after that was in Azerbaijan and that seemed like one hell of a trek, so I went to the Monzanet website and took a look around for tickets.
For those uninitiated, when you attend a Grand Prix you have a simple choice to make: do you want to buy a “General Admission” ticket, or a “Grandstand” ticket? The former doesn’t give you access to any reserved seating, whereas the latter does. Each track on the Grand Prix calendar will have a number of grandstands available, and a few “GA” areas. In GA, you simply rock up, and try and get a good position to watch the action unfold. For most Grands Prix, particularly on race day, this means arriving as early as possible (ideally as soon as the track opens) and then getting yourself bedded in for the day (a typical race doesn’t start until 3pm).
Because I was travelling alone, and because I wanted to at least try and guarantee a good view, I decided to try and get a grandstand ticket. Now, at Monza, probably the best grandstand to book is the Laterale Destra B, or 26B. You get a roof over your head, a prime position on the start/finish straight and right in front of the podium, and you’ll also be surrounded by the legendary Tifosi, the Mafioso-sounding name for the die-hard Ferrari fans that swarm the Italian Grand Prix each year (Ferrari, of course, being an Italian team)
Sadly for me, all of the tickets in 26B (or even any of the 26 stands) were sold out, so I went for the next best option. Grandstand 1, or Centrale. There was one ticket left available here when I looked, and although it wasn’t cheap, it was reasonably priced for three full days of racing action so I snapped it up. I guess they want to encourage you to go for all three days, because the price for just race day alone was 85% of the cost for all three days.
I was sat on row B, about level with position number 4 on the starting grid. It was a good seat, with two minor drawbacks (and no, this isn’t going to be a Kryten/Red Dwarf reference):
- The roof of the stand didn’t cover me from the sun until very late in the day
- The safety fences obscured much of the view.
Now, to be fair, point 2 there is the same for most grandstands, and although it doesn’t impact on your actual viewing, it did hinder my efforts to take decent photos throughout the day.
Point 1 was quite important, though. I knew from checking the weather in advance that it was going to be hot in Monza, but I did not expect it to be that hot. For each of the three days I was there, the temperature was between 32°C and 34°C (90-93°F), with very little in the way of cloud cover.
I drank a lot of water that weekend. Far more than I would normally drink, and so much that I actually developed a taste for it and now I am quite happy to drink water by itself, something I’ve never really liked doing in the past 40 years of my life!
A lovely Three Day Weekend
I was staying in Milan, so needed to figure out a way of getting from there to Monza each day (and from there, on to the track itself)
I had read that traffic is (unsurprisingly) a bit of a nightmare on the roads between the two destinations on the Grand Prix weekend, so I’d resolved myself to the idea of going on the train. Trenitalia and Trenord, the two “main” train operators in the region, put on additional trains for the race day, but not for the two preceding days (Free Practice on the Friday, further Free Practice and Qualifying on the Saturday) but I figured I’d give it a go anyway. I bought some tickets via the Trenord app (once I’d figured out what I needed to buy) and went for it.
Friday
On the first day, Friday, I took an Uber from my hotel to the Porto Garibaldi station in Milan. I wasn’t sure about the Metro yet, so opted for the easier choice. Finding the train was straightforward, and it took me straight to my intended destination — Biassono-Lesmo station, one or two stops along from Monza itself. I had found a post on Reddit that strongly advised people to go via that station instead of the main one, as it is much less busy and is right next door to the pedestrian entrance to the track up at that corner, so shuttle buses were not required like they were at the main station.
They were right! I got there on the Friday and there were no queues, I breezed straight in, past the security checkpoints, and walked the 1.6 miles from the entrance to the Centrale grandstand, where I watched some Free Practice for all three of the Formula series (cunningly named F3, F2 and F1) and, at the start of the day, a few demonstration laps of historic Formula One cars, which was a nice nostalgia trip!
Saturday
Saturday (Qualifying day) I decided to do a little differently. First of all, I decided against Uber’ing to the train station. On my return to Milan the night before, I’d used the Metro system to get from Porto Garibaldi to the closest station to my hotel, Duomo, and found it incredibly straightforward, so I decided to do the same (but in reverse, of course) that morning.
I then decided to get a train to the main station at Monza. My train of thought (no pun intended) was twofold. First, I wanted to see how busy it was there, and secondly, I wanted to know if it was quicker to walk to the Centrale grandstand from the main entrance versus the north-eastern entrance I came in at the day prior.
This was the crowd that greeted me when I left the station at Monza:
It was ridiculously busy (and, from what I can gather, this was nothing compared to the following day!)
We had to queue to get on to shuttle buses (the green buses in the background there) which would take us on the short journey to the track. This whole process took around an hour.
Once we’d arrived at the track, I then had to walk another two miles from the bus drop-off point to my seat in Centrale, with a hefty queue in between to get through security and the ticket check at the entrance. This took another hour and a half, and amusingly I got a bit flustered at the ticket check because my ticket had disappeared from my Apple Wallet, and in the process of hunting around for it I accidentally brought up the QR code for my IKEA Family card, and they waved me through after seeing that!
Still, I eventually got to my seat and settled in for more track action. Here’s Juan Manuel Correa in his DAMS Lucas Oil Formula 2 car, during the F2 Sprint Race:
After the F2 Sprint Race, I decided to take a walk along the track during the F1 Qualifying sessions, to see if I could find any good vantage points for photos. There were slim pickings (a lot of people in the way!) but I did manage to snap this shot of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc overtaking Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg.
Sunday
At last, race day had arrived. I decided to go back to the track via Biassono-Lesmo on this day. I expected it would be busier than Friday, and I was right, but even despite that it was still nowhere close to the chaos that was the main station on the Saturday (and I shudder to think about what it would have been like that morning)
I had brought my own food and drink with me today, purchased at the train station in Milan, to avoid having to queue for refreshments during the day. I arrived at my seat in Centrale just in time to see the ‘parade lap’ where a big truck drives around the circuit with all of the drivers on the back waving to their fans. Being in Italy, and surrounded by Tifosi, it was no surprise that the two Ferrari drivers (Carlos Sainz Jr. and Charles Leclerc) garnered the biggest cheers.
Shortly after this lap had taken place, grid preparations began in full swing. I was honestly amazed at just how many people came piling out from the pit lane and paddock area on to the starting grid. Technicians, TV interviewers, other media personalities, seemingly even people working for each team who apparently had the sole job of holding an umbrella aloft above each driver wherever they want to protect them from the baking sun. Even more incredibly, it all worked like a well oiled machine.
Before too long, it was time for the race to begin. I don’t think anything can truly prepare you for the sound of a full grid of Formula One cars revving up their engines ready to launch off the line when the starting lights disappear. I recorded the start on my phone, and I’m 95% sure that the software on the phone dulled out the sound as a way of protecting itself!
The two McLaren drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, had secured P1 and P2 on the starting grid, much to the dismay of the Tifosi, but their disappointment didn’t last long as Charles Leclerc started to attack both McLarens over the course of the race.
Leclerc ultimately came first, and the atmosphere around the grandstands for those final few laps when he came screaming past the Tifosi was absolutely electric. Everyone going absolutely nuts, waving their flags, shouting and hooting. Amazing scenes. Other than that, it was a pretty straightforward race. No safety car, no huge drama, just 53 laps of good, clean racing, with a win for Ferrari and the two McLarens finishing second and third.
The track invasion
It’s common at many of the Grands Prix for the marshalls dotted around the track to open up the safety gates at the sides after the race has finished to allow fans on to the track, the so-called “track invasion”.
The track invasion at Monza is, apparently, the stuff of legend, and I can see why.
People were gathering in large groups around the gate in front of my seat from around 10-15 laps before the end of the race. I decided to join the crowd after the race had finished, and we slowly hustled and bustled our way on to the track, over the surprisingly high crash barriers. It’s a good job I’m tall!
If I’d thought the atmosphere in the stands was electric, it was nothing compared to this. To be packed in to a very tight crowd of literally thousands of people all essentially marching down towards the podium, waving their Scuderia Ferrari flags, singing and chanting about the home team, it really was something else.
So packed was the crowd on the track, that when I eventually decided to turn back towards the gate that I’d come through (along with many other folks) it took nearly an hour of slow shuffling to make it back to the gate and get off the track!
I then headed back to the train station, with an army of jovial Ferrari fans virtually carrying me along, and travelled back into Milan.
And thus, my weekend at the Italian Grand Prix was at an end.
Again?
Would I do it again? Absolutely.
There’s probably a few things I’d do differently, though. Firstly, I’d probably not go to Monza again. Variety is the spice of life, and all that, but apparently there are much better tracks to visit if you want to see good action. Imola in 2025 (also in Italy) might be an option.
I’d also make sure I took food in with me each day I was there. I made the right decision here for race day. The previous day I had to join the food queues and this meant standing in line for upwards of 40 minutes to get to the front of the queue to place your order and pay, and then moving to another 40+ minute queue to pick up your food. Irritatingly, they had a QR code on the counter at the front that you could scan to order and pay from your phone and skip the first queue, but with it being right at the front, it was pointless.
I’m also not sure that I would go for a full three day ticket again. The race day was, as you would expect, definitely the highlight of the weekend. The atmosphere for that whole day was incredible, but on Free Practice and Qualifying days, crowds were smaller and it felt more lacklustre.
I’d also make sure that I bought a ticket that had a roof over my head all of the time. I was very brown by the time I left Italy, and still am!
If the price was right, I might also consider one of the hospitality packages too, especially over the pit lane which would make for fantastic views of the preparations and mid-race pit stops.
But, generally speaking, I had a wonderful weekend and it was a great way to celebrate my birthday in 2024 — albeit a little early!
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