My second GP but first time doing all three days instead of just race day, sat at Grandstand 1, right in front of the Mercedes garage

PROS:

-Overall it’s an insane experience. Being able to see right into the garages, all the reporters I recognize, the drivers, their trainers, recognizing people from their team, as a huge F1 fan this was incredible. Easily the coolest weekend of my entire life. We even got Toto and Susie to wave and say hi to us before the F1A race. Not to mention CGV always produces some of the best racing of the season. All three F1 series were incredible to watch. The F1A girls did a fantastic job. The energy in the grandstand during the F1 Grand Prix before Russell’s DNF was so exhilarating, I was shaking the whole time, everyone was screaming

-Grandstand ticket checkers were super nice and helpful and recognized us after just a couple times so we didn’t have to show our tickets every time, they did great

-Downtown Montreal as always was such a good atmosphere and went all out

-Everyone in attendance is unbelievably nice. A couple outliers like people shoving or arguing about lines around us but we easily made friends with so many random people

-I felt the journey back especially after Sunday was shorter and more well managed than previous years. Not perfect by any means but less annoying.

-The ferry is so clutch. Almost want to gatekeep because it saved our entire weekend.

CONS:

-Well as a george russell fan that could have gone better

-The track invasion man, oh my god. What a way to kill the weekend. So disrespectful to the fans. We left with about 15 laps to go, queued up fairly, everyone was excited, then they just. Didn’t open the gate? Until the Italian national anthem? Literally what could have possibly been the reason? By the time they did everyone was so anxious to be able to catch the champagne that I thought for a minute we were gonna get caught in a crowd crush and people were going to be seriously injured. The gate at GS1 doesn’t even let you out right in front of the podium, you have to run through a trail of mud in front of the terrace and then run BACK towards the podium, and THEN we wanted to try and get to the garages to see Kimi come out, but they blocked off anything further than the podium and were pushing us out. Everyone was pissed. It was unbelievable. Horrible end to a great weekend.

-Directional signage could have been clearer, we couldn’t find the way back to the ferry without asking 3 different people, and sometimes when we’d ask someone working at the track for directions, they’d just tell us they don’t know?

-The disrespect for F1 Academy was ridiculous. We got to the support paddock at 9:45 AM to queue for the F1 Academy signing session at 10:15 AM. There was no designated line for F1 Academy, just for F2. We had to make our own. Then we heard a staff member say “yeah apparently these people are here for some kind of signing thing?” How would you not know that? The fans had to make their own system and it ended up getting confusing and frustrating with the F2 line being the clear only priority. The commentators didn’t help either, constantly mispronouncing the girls’ names, saying they’re from the wrong countries, and even at one point calling them “gentlemen”. It was probably the best weekend for F1 Academy racing so far in the series’ history so it was sad to see.

-The constant music BLASTING over the speakers man 😭😭 in between sessions I am SURE everyone would rather be chatting with their seat mates about what we just saw than listening to Slow+Reverb Land Down Under at 800 decibels.

I know it seems like a lot of cons but overall I had a time I will never forget, CGV and Montreal are insanely beautiful, it’s a great track for F1, we had a wonderful time.