Grand Prix tickets - Silverstone or abroad? Abroad is the same price or cheaper!

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Hoping to get some tickets for my DH's 50th and our car mad son as a surprise. Decent Silverstone tickets for two next July with accommodation is coming out at around £2-£2.5K for the weekend. I've checked Barcelona in June and it will be marginally cheaper and we could make it into a longer weekend with me and our other younger daughter going too (but not to the GP). If you book a package through an agent the Barcelona hotels also organise transfers to the circuit each day - I'm reading horror stories about it taking hours to get out of Silverstone. Does anyone have any thoughts/experience? It's a minefield and I don't know where to start, looks like tickets are selling fast already. A lot of accommodation near Silverstone is already fully booked - Barcelona too but as I say there are nice resort hotels near the beach which organise transfers. DH doesn't really do crowds/queuing so wondering if he'll think it's easier just to watch it on TV! Thanks

I'd go abroad. Silverstone is hell on earth. Bring back Brands Hatch.

"I'm reading horror stories about it taking hours to get out of Silverstone. Does anyone have any thoughts/experience?"

The stories you have heard are probably understating the true horror. Getting to the track is a nightmare.

DS's girlfriend booked and paid for Monza for his 21st. She booked the actual tickets on their own then booked a package holiday around about it. She found a lot of the Grand Prix packages were only 3/4 days and they wanted a longer holiday in Milan round about it
Not sure of the price but I could ask her - they went in September and absolutely loved it. They only went for race day and I don't think the track is too far out of the city centre and they found it all really easy. He said it was way much better then her ever imagined and he's not a crowd/people person either.
He was meant to go to Silverstone for his 16th but covid put paid to that so not sure how different that would have been to Milan

We did Budapest and it was brilliant and a lot cheaper even including flights and hotel!

Having done Silverstone many (many!) times in the distant past, I’d definitely agree with people saying it’s not a great experience. I’ve been to several GPs elsewhere, and the standout favourites were Spa (amazing atmosphere, proper drivers’ circuit) and Melbourne (GP a short tram ride from the very centre of the city, and the whole city gets involved).
So yeah, I’d definitely suggest elsewhere.
And unless it’s F1 or nothing, I’d recommend taking a look at Goodwood. The Festival of Speed and the Revival are both awesome, though you do need grandstand passes to make FoS good, and grandstand+paddock for the revival in order to escape all the people in fancy dress & get to the cars and the racing.

I’m not sure if it’s happening next year, but dh and ds went to Spa 2 years ago and had a ball (after discovering the morning they were leaving that dh’s passport had expired!!). Got that sorted and it was great for them both, they had grandstand tickets at Eau Rouge, it was a sprint weekend and they were filming for the F1 Brad Pitt film. It was expensive having the seats but it was a blow out for ds’s 21st and they’re very glad they went. As was I. I didn’t have to watch it for once lol
🤣

Go abroad. Silverstone is a joke price wise. I’ve been to several and I’ve never had as good a time there as I do at other races.

We went to Silverstone this year just for the actual race day and did park & ride. Unbelievably smooth! I had warned DD not to expect to be home until 9pm and we were home just after 6. We speed walked to the bus pick up point, waited about 2 mins (literally) before getting on a bus and then straight out, going the wrong way down a —closed— dual carriageway

Go to Spa, it's utterly amazing, even if you do fell down the hill in the mud and ruin your new boots after a few beers, as happened to my friend...

Another vote for Budapest over Silverstone.

Barcelona is so well organised! It's a much better event than Silverstone.

We stayed in El Masnou. Subway into central Barcelona and then one of the hundreds of shuttle buses out to Montmelo. The transport is much more organised and set up than Silverstone

Abroad - Monaco is possible and go with a company. Many of the coach companies do reasonable price trips by air, and various levels of ticket. The advantage is the coach transfer in and out on the key days.

I've been to Barcelona where the hotel and transfers were sorted. It was well organised but I'm not sure I'd recommend the Barcelona GP. There are 'better' circuits on the European section of the calendar.

DH and “I, mostly tagging along” have done Melbourne (tram from city centre), Monaco (easy train from Nice or further away) and Spa (easy enough from Liege).

Monaco is/was very walkable (I now realise that was 20 years ago) and restaurants get a lot cheaper if you head out into less posh bits.

For Spa with pre-teen daughter in tow we stayed at a Youth Hostel in Liege. DH caught a train and then a shuttle bus, DD and I spent our time catching a train to Dinant (pretty town on the river with castle and caves) and another to Bokrijk (lovely free playground and a a €heritage town (a rural Beamish)).
We’d driven from the UK so topped and tailed it with an Airbnb farm stop on the way out and did a Centreparcs and a Dutch Barge Airbnb on a canal on the way back. We had big thunderstorms on the German border and it was quite humid.

I can recommend the “tagging along”approach. It works well to “top and tail” the visit to include something to please the non-car mad family members.

Double check the age restrictions for F1

The one thing that makes me nervous about going to Spa is that F1 has become increasingly nervous about racing in the rain in recent years. Spa is one of the tracks they are most concerned about.

There is a fairly high probability of rain and I'd be concerned that I wouldn't see any racing.

It is an incredible track though.

Abroad. Silverstone a rip off. Always a mud pit. Takes hours to get out. Shit food for £££££.

Abroad.

you can do it a lot cheaper. I’ve paid £350 for my Monza tickets for next year and have a flat in Milan for three nights for £350.

I've not been in 30yrs. We waited in that car park for the whole of the 2hr top 40 to get out after the race. My poor dad.
I'd love to take my dc's but I have no way of surviving the early start and gridlock hell.

How about pricing up Zandvoort? That was in August this year. There are loads if beach resorts along that coast (and public transport isn’t bad).