SPANISH FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX

I paid for parking A1/2 that gives close access to gate 7 and the general admission area. On Saturday on arrival they wouldn't allow me into that parking area but instead I ended up in A3 a good distance from the general admission area. Not helpful when you are carrying picnic items to make the experience comfortable for the grass area! It is also difficult to exit from that car park to get back to the main road it must have taken us about an hour after fighting with ignorant drivers who wouldn't take their turn in the exit queue!. I was very disappointed as it is cheaper to park in that area!
Parked in the correct area on race day and we were away in less that 10 mins... no contest!

It was a wonderful experience.

Definitely use Sagales buses to get to and from the circuit, this couldn't be faulted, from leaving our seat at the circuit we were back in the centre of Barcelona within the hour. Would recommend you take binoculars to be able to read the tv screens to follow where the drivers are as once they start lapping each other its difficult to work out where everyone is. We had a brilliant view from Stand C and not too far to walk to get back to the main entrance/exit. Took our own drink and food so don't know about the cost at the track. Make sure you take plastic bottles, not cans or glass.

This is our fifth time at the Spanish grand prix it never fails to surpass all expectations
This year after reading other reviews we sat in stand L, never had a bad seat but these were the best yet. We stayed in Barcelona and got the train every day (12 euros for 10 journeys beat that) .You get off the train at Montmello station then walk through Montmello village up to the circuit (bars cafes f1 stalls all part of the weekend experience). After the race the train station is mega busy so recommend staying in Montmello for few drinks and food until crowds die down.
Don�t know what we are doing next year but Spain looking good again.

my only complaint was that it took an hour and a half queing to get through to the train which others commented was very slow and disorganised compared to other years however with attendance figures of 80k this has to be expected to a certain degree.

We booked our GP tickets well in advance. They arrived early, accompanied with everything we needed for the race weekend. We also received emails and regular updates from bookf1.com which were incredibly helpful upon arriving in Barcelona.

Our seats were amazing! We had an unobstructed view of many parts of the circuit. The facilities were perfect. We stopped on the Las Ramblas in the centre of Barcelona. There are a number of ways to get to the circuit de catalunya. We caught the metro "green line" from the top of las ramblas to "clot" which is approx 4 stops. We then jumped on the train from "clot" to the village of "montmelo" this takes approx 20mins, the train is FULL of F1 fans. The track is a very short bus ride from "montmelo".

Once the race has finished recommend spending time in Montmelo as there are literally thousands of fans trying to get on 1 train. There are plenty of bars and restaurants.

We would definitely go back and book our tickets through bookF1.com

Bought three day pass for my husbands Xmas - best present he has ever had, F1 atmospehere super, people helpful and facilities clean and well organized.Barcelona beautiful, well worth the visit. Sagales buses excellent service, so easy to use and again well organised.
Home exhausted but happy !!

Absolutely outstanding . If you go to one Grand Prix make it this one . The Sagales bus service to take you to circuit was faultless. The circuit is great . We sat in Stand J and the view from the seats was excellent . Everyone was friendly --yeh it may be a little bit expensive for drinks etc once in but its all part of the experience . Definately go again and Barcelona must be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Went to Spanish F1 for my stag weekend. Absolute Crackkkeeeeeerrrrrrr!!!

Stayed in Barcelona and took train to the track on Sat and Sun. We had no problem with the train or the connecting coach. If you don't like standing on the train then find alternative transport.

People complain about the price of beer but honestly, it was cheaper than beer served in Barcelona centre.

Stand J was great with a view of pit exit and also in DRS zone.

Oh and get a vuvuzela. My mate k-dog had one and it was great fun.

bookF1.com were great. Good comms, great service and great aftersales service.

Best weekend of my life, no question.

Been avid armchair fan for years, and have now converted wife so we decided to go and see for oursleves and cant wait till our next one.

Firstly getting to circuit very easy - 25 mins casual walk from Montmelo, not well signposted but after following crowd first day was easy.

Pit lane walk was superb, went both morning and afternoon, much quieter in morning to see cars, but no drivers out. For afternoon unless you got straight to front of garage you have little chance of seeing drivers and almost impossible to get past Alonso pit area. We went into stand opposite and could see all the drivers come out and get some got shots with a big zoom lens, but to be close up, get there quick and get your place and wait.

Yes food and drink is expensive but would you expect anything else ? Stock up at supermarket in Montmelo, get plastic bottles - no cans. Cool box is best idea too. Beers at circuit 4/8/11 Eur depending on size. Bocadillos from 4Eur. Also if you do buy bottles at circuit make sure you have some bottle tops already with you as they remove the bottle caps (so you have to finish drink while its open and thus buy more)

Stand J was a very good view, by pit exit and good view of first corner, we had row 8 which was very good, but perhaps a few rows higher better still to avoid safety fence in view, also great for seeing crashed drivers returning to pits on scooter !!

We did watch support races from main stand and would say its probably worth the extra to watch from there, so may look at that next time, also the stand by the last bend was good too, watched a bit from there on open seating day.

F1 village was very good, I did think there would be perhaps more, not having been before I dont know if this same at all races or not, I suspect some venues may have more stands and so on. The pirelli stand was very good with chance to change a tyre too.

No problems with leaving venue, dont bother to force your way out with the crowds and wait to get onto train, find a bar in Montmelo and chill for a few hours, we left just before 7pm and walked straight onto a train that was far from busy.

Also make use of your ticket and watch the support races, you will likely be able to watch from anywhere and with fewer people about can really chill and enjoy it. Although the free seating policy is supposedly only Fri, just ask to get into main stand we watched support races from there, one guy said could not go in, moved to next gate and fella just waved us straight in - so depends who you ask !!

Thank you Book F1 for superb weekend.

A little advice to hopefully help with next year's GP.
Organise the train station a little better rather than having a huge group of people pushing tighter and tighter to get into the station first. This many cause injuries if people arn't careful. I was too happy about waiting for a hour and a half before getting onto a train. I'm assuming more trains were organised... what about couch buses too?
And it would also be great if there were more signs for pedestrians to find which gate they want while walking to the track. The track map doesn't help much with trying to find the gates.

Incredibly easy this year to get from central Barcelona to the coach parking, took about 35-miutes and the same time returning. This suggest that the event was not as busy as in previous years although there was no sign off this. Overall there is an excellent road rour out to the circuit
Great stand location with bar close by.

The weekend was fantastic, very happy with our position - great views. Strongly recommend FanVision, that was brilliant. A bit of a haul to the track - a long walk which wouldn't have been bad but too much in the heat! We only walked once, got a taxi one day and a shuttle bus the other. When we arrived back at Montmelo train station on race day to get back into Barcelona, the queues were awful. We were queuing outside the station for an hour, they were letting people in at snails pace! I don't think they could cope with the masses.........

This was my first experience of a race and it won't be the last! I'd thoroughly recommend a vist to the Catalunya circuit; it's cheap and easy to get to by train or coach from Barcelona and the facilities out there are of a good standard.
We had seats in stand J so got a good view of the pit exit and first bend plus there was a TV screen opposite. We had 3 day passes which meant that we got to visit the pits on the Thursday; the atmosphere there was great and we got to see a number of the cars and drivers. Overall great value for money, I'm already planning my next race!

6 of us went for first time and must say it really was enjoyable. Stocked up with beer (1.5lt plastic bottles) and food at local supermarket after getting off train. Walk to track, not a great problem - 20-30 mins. Have great view at turns 6/7/8 and view of screen, which is needed to keep track of whats going on. After race the train station was very busy so sat in square at Bar Kiwi. 5 pints and a Coke were only 17 euro. Wandered down to station at about 7 o'clock and there were quite a few people there still but got on a train and away within 15mins. Would def go again and on GA tickets.

we stayed in the Barcelona Hotel the train station was just outside, we then took 4 stops to reach the coaches as you advised. they were fantastic hardly queued and no trouble getting out the circuit all very well organized I have no advise to give, your company gave it all Thank You

Myself and two friends have just had an excellent weekend in Barcelona for the Spanish GP. We were in Stand J which is right on the pit lane exit which means plenty of action. We saw a lot of slip streaming down the start/finish straight which acts as the DRS zone and saw the overtakes completed going in to turn 1. We had a screen right in front of our seats which made it possible to follow the race fully. Highly recommend these seats.

Plenty of amenities near the stand J so food and drink was easily accessible.

We used the Sagales buses on both Saturday and Sunday and the service was excellent for 9 euros return.

We had a fantastic trip to the Circuit de Catalunya and would definitely do it again.

Upon arrival to Barcelona airport we hopped onboard the Aerobus to the city centre at a cost of about 10 Euros per person (for a return ticket). The bus was not overly full and was air conditioned. It stopped at a number of places en route to the centre, we got off at the Catalunya square at the top of Las Ramblas, which was useful as we were staying about half way down Las Ramblas.

We went to the track on the Thursday morning for the pit walk which was our first attempt at getting the train and making our way to the circuit.
Following advice read on this website, we purchased a T10 ticket for 18.75 Euros (I think) from the machine in the Metro station. Buying the ticket was simple, just select English on the touch screen and follow the instructions, you will see T-10 and ensure that you select Zone 2, as that is where Montmelo is, we saw a number of people that were stuck with Zone 1 tickets having problems at Montmelo. We also saw another chap who had paid 30 euros for a ticket that was only valid for one day, he wasn't best pleased when a local explained this to him on board the train.
The T-10 will give you 10 journeys and this includes passing through from the metro station to the over ground as you have 1.5 hours in which to complete your journey. So this ticket was more than enough to get us to and from the track each day.
So we got the Metro from Liecu on the Green line, then two stops to Passieg De Gracia, from which we got the Renfe Mainline train to Montmelo from platform 2. Once onboard the train there are screens which display where you are and how many stops remain prior to reaching Montmelo.

Once at Montmelo you have the choice of a 25-30 minute walk to the track or a bus that runs from a bus stop opposite a Repsol petrol station in the main town. Just come out of the station walk up and then turn right onto the high street and follow it along, you'll see the buses on the right hand side. However there were no buses on the Thursday, so it was walk or taxi. If you don't wish to get the bus just carry on walking staight out of the town towards the circuit.

We only stayed at the AM pit walk for about an hour or so and were very fortunate to get to go and have a look inside the Force India garage (due to a friend of mine who works for them) which was great, as normally at Silverstone, for example, you can't get close to the pit lane without a paddock pass.
We didn't see any drivers come out before 11ish, they may have done afterwards. Although we did hear they came out more in the PM pit walk, but it was very very busy and people were pushing and shoving to get close.

On the Thursday we had a look at the food outlets to see what the prices looked like and we weren't surprised to see they were very high, especially for beer and other drinks. The choice of food wasn't great either, hot dogs and pizza slices etc.
So my advice would be to bring your own. We purchased a cool bag from the Carrefour supermarket and left this in our hotel rooms fridge overnight and then made sandwiches for the next day. As for beer and soft drinks we bought some in Montmelo in the mornings on the way to the track. Most of the shops sell beer in plastic bottles, as there is a strict no glass or can policy at the track.

On the Friday we arrived at the track and it wasn't really busy at all, so we were able to make our way around the different grandstands without any issues.

On Saturday and Sunday we were sat in grandstand H, which I would really recommend. It seemed to be the most popular in the stadium section. You get great views of nearly the whole of sector 3. You can see the entire stadium section, the final corner and the entrance to the pit lane. You get a great view of the screen as well and you can see quite clearly what is going on.

There are two radio stations advertised at the track, one in English, which didn't work and one in Catalan and English which worked fine. The English however was only on about 25% of the time but was enough to keep up with what was going on.

We had no issues with getting on the trains on Thurs, Fri, Sat and Sunday AM but after the race Montmelo station was packed with a large queue. So we walked back over to the main square, sat down, had some food and drink and let the crowds die down. It's also worth mentioning that the food in Montmelo is far better priced than in central Barcelona as well.

So all in all a great weekend, with BookF1 being absolutely spot on. We would definitely do this one again and we will be using BookF1 again in the future.

We drove to this GP would recommend doing that if you like an adventure and amazing scenery.. camped just up the road at a site called el vedado cheap but had all you needed.Circuit is great get to have a mooch around the stands on friday and if you fancy a cheeky saturday stand ask the guys on the stand gates and offer them 10-20 euros and you may get into a stand we did. race day get there for 7am or you will not get the best view, atmosphere was amazing the spanish went nuts when Alonso came round the corner in first good banter also.had a great time food and drink good and reasonable priced. toilets were ok but for some reason they have no toilet seats bizarre. exiting the track was smooth got in the car and i was on the autopista mediteranian in 15 mins. great weekend hight recommend.

To be honest,I personally think cataluny is better viewing than Silverstone from a general admission perspective. The circuit is clean, well maintaind ans all facilities are easy accessible. A fantastic weekend!