November 3, 2019
The 2019 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix.
To be very clear, if you want to see as much of the race as possible and if you want to always know who is leading and who is in the pits, your best bet is to watch it on TV along with a laptop. You can do that at home as well as here.
But, if you want to feel, smell and hear what this world-class event is all about, you need to be here.
photo credit: circuitoftheamericas website (the view from turn one).
Texas
I've been to a couple Formula 1 races at Austin and a few more MotoGP motorcycle races starting with the first year in 2012. There have been significant improvements made over those years.
Getting to the track is now quite simple if you park in downtown Austin and then take one of the shuttle buses to the track. The cost of the round-trip shuttle is less than the cost to park at the track, and there's far less walking (and time) to do it.
They've progressed from one long line of people feeding multiple buses, one bus at a time, to now loading multiple buses simultaneously from lines of people temporarily created for each bus. There are plenty of people assigned to make it all work. It's a good system and much more efficient from what they had just a few years ago.
I don't know just how many people attended each day, but the grand total has to be in the multiple hundreds of thousands. There are a lot of people here. And, it's clear by just listening to the languages being spoken, people have come to Austin for this race from all over the world.
You can buy a Ferrari shirt and Ferrari hat, but it will cost you...
Up there is turn one. Those high stands would be a pretty good place to watch the whole race, but, I brought my folding chair to join the thousands of other general-admission people sitting in the grass all around the long track. That works just fine. I can move about; those in the big stands are probably staying put for the day.
Lots of private suites and private cooks to go along with them.
The drivers were introduced during a parade lap of vintage Corvettes.
There might have been more Ferrari flags than Texas flags. Maybe.
Dozens and dozens of places to buy food and drink. But, the lines are long. Even this vendor--just working out of a blue box on wheels--has a long line to buy his beer and water. In general, the food all looks to be very good quality--it's more than just stadium food.
The start of the race was crowded, but of course, that doesn't last long.
Mostly, you watch the giant screen across the track to know what's going on, and then wait for the cars to come screaming by you. They go by at speeds that are really hard to believe at first.
The winner of the race (Valtteri Bottas) was happy, but the second place driver (Lewis Hamilton) clinched the championship today (for the sixth time).