How to Get the Best Views at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve with a General Admission Ticket

As a fan of F1 from the Schumacher era, I’ve always wanted to attend a race. So I was beyond excited when I found out I live just 20 min away from an active F1 track. Since F1 is an expensive sport and I am a student, I decided to attend only on race day (Sunday) and make the most out of my ticket. In December 2021, I bought the cheapest General Admission ticket ($130 CAD) for the Canadian Grand Prix scheduled in June 2022.

General Admission ticket

This ticket allows access to all non-grandstand areas on the track. Grandstands are the raised seats you generally see on TV, offering a larger field of view. The GA areas are first-come-first-serve at ground level, and to get a decent view you need to claim your spot before anyone else. Most people arrive extremely early and try to camp with lawn chairs at the best spots before they get taken.

There are many interesting things you can witness during a Grand Prix, ranging from racing incidents, watching the cars up close, seeing that rocket acceleration, and overtakes. To see anything interesting, spectators generally go to places on the track which have the most chance of something happening, like hairpins, overtake spots, etc. People in grandstands pay and see more, so are more likely to witness something interesting. To maximize my chances, my strategy was to be in many interesting places throughout the race.

The track

Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a man-made island located in the St. Lawrence river between the island of Montreal and the mainland shore. The racing track runs along the circumference of the island and is accessible to the public for most of the year. You can use it like any public road to cycle or drive on the track (fun fact: this is why Canada is classified as a street circuit). There is a small lake in the middle, along with a small beach and a huge casino.

A few months before the race, I biked around on the track trying to gauge if I can move around fast enough. Although the track is 4.4km long, the “inside” area is entirely accessible by foot. Additionally, there are a few footbridges that allow you to cross over the track (even during the race!). A walk from the pit lane to the hairpin just takes 20 min and half that if you run. Since a typical F1 race lasts 90+ minutes, if I were to spend some effort getting around fast, I could be in lots of interesting places over the course of the race. The more I thought about it the more I became convinced that this is totally doable and so much better than paying a higher price for a grandstand ticket that restricts you to just one place.

Grand Prix Week

Attending a Grand Prix is a thrilling experience that starts long before the race itself. Montreal is generally very lively in the summer, but it is in overdrive during race week. There are numerous racing-related activities available all around downtown. You can see famous personalities in their yachts around Old Port, sports cars being driven around, chequered flags everywhere, and also run into drivers randomly on the street! The teams usually stay at high-end hotels in downtown eg. Mercedes in Ritz-Carlton & Red Bull in Place d’Armes. I was thrilled to find out that Lewis Hamilton went for a morning run on Mount Royal - the same path I occasionally frequent.

The Canadian GP organizers allowed public access to the pit lane on Thursday. If you can’t get a ticket, this is a great way to see some pitlane action without paying anything! The day is used by the teams to set up their garages and build the cars. Each team’s mechanics arrive early and assemble two 15 million $ cars in a day. Make sure you arrive at least 1 hour before the track is opened so that you don’t have to wait in line for a long time. I was able to see work on half-built cars, pitlane telemetry screens, team strategy engineers, drivers, and teams practicing pit stops. The experience is an excellent way to witness the intricate preparations that go into Formula 1 racing before the race day itself.

Race day: It’s lights out and away we go!

The race I attended had a record turnout of 338,000 people. There are numerous pre-race events. For this GP, the morning was occupied by races from other classes of vehicles. The most exciting of these was the GT car race, where I was able to photograph a car with glowing, red-hot disc breaks. I also saw a GT car crash into the Wall of Champions.

I planned to do a circuit of all interesting turns and corners over the course of the race. At each spot, I spent roughly 5 laps just watching the cars and taking in the experience, and ~3 laps photographing. I was able to do approximately two circuits this way and witness the spectacle from different angles. The only limit to this approach is your stamina, but it’s well worth the effort if you want to see as much of the race as possible.

In what follows, I will refer to the track image I shared above.

Grandstand 1

While the views aren’t the best here due to a narrow window, you can catch glimpses of the cars accelerating at an incredible rate. You can sneak a few views between Grandstand 1 and the green hut. I recommend watching the race start from here. The bottom of the grandstand scaffolding is not opaque, so you can sneak a few views from there as well.

Platine to Familiale

Unfortunately, most of the area between Platine and the orange hut was cordoned off. However, near the beach, there was the championship trophy on display that was worth checking out. The areas near Familiale were either not accessible or did not provide a good view of the cars.

Familiale to Grandstand 34

This region contains two footbridges that cross over the track, allowing you to exit the island from the center. These bridges are open even during the race, which allowed me fantastic views as the cars chased each other down the straight.

These images are also a good demonstration of the electronic rolling shutter effect.

Casino entrance straight

While you may not be able to see much detail here, sitting perpendicular to a straight allows you to fully appreciate the speed and sound of the cars. This was a great place to pratice camera panning techniques.

Wall of Champions

You can either watch the cars cornering the chicane or look straight down the track to see the cars accelerate away extremely quickly.

Grandstand 15 / Hairpin

This was the highlight of my experience, and I spent most of my time here. Standing behind a broadcast camera hole at the tip of the hairpin, I had a full view of both sides of the turn. I watched as drivers slowed from 300kph to 80, attempted overtakes, and then rocketed away.
Especially during the last few laps, Carlos Sainz tried attacking Max Verstappen here. The crowd (including me) went wild every time he tried. TV cameras don’t do a good job of conveying the speed at which most overtakes take place - you have to be there to appreciate the guts and skills required to place your car a few centimeters from another while going 300kph.

Grandstand 47

Though I didn’t make it to the pit lane before the race ended, it turned out to be a fortunate accident. After a race ends, each car completes a cooldown lap (it’s not just for show, the cars have to literally cool down their brakes). After that is finished, fans are traditionally allowed to get on the track. Climbing over the grandstand 47 barricades to join them was a unique and unforgettable experience. I even picked up some rubber laid down on the track and took home some race signage as souvenirs.

Parc fermé

I missed the prize ceremony but there was a lot to see at the pitlane start after all cars were parked. While watching FIA officials take readings, I couldn’t help but think about the amount of money and cutting edge technology sitting in front of me.

Attending a Grand Prix on a budget doesn’t mean missing out on the action. With a little planning and effort, you can experience the thrill of the race from various viewpoints and create unforgettable memories. If you have any suggestions or notice any inaccuracies, please don’t hesitate to let me know.