Hungarian Grand Prix

Up front, I love the city of Budapest, it has such a vibrant social scene at night and hundreds of mainly young F1 fans gather around the Ritz Carlton, Kempinski, Four Seasons and Hilton hotels excited and determined to meet the drivers who stay at those properties.

The first Hungarian F1 GP was in 1986 and it’s been a popular race on the calendar since.

Yes, the paddock is dated and the media centre is the worst of all tracks but you won’t have to worry about that. It can get quite hot in Budapest so you might want to get seats in the pit straight grandstand which offers afternoon shade.

Tickets to the event are good value, in fact there are few other races offering cheaper general admission tickets and the view from those GA areas is good.

Meeting a driver here is nearly impossible unless you have paddock access. Most of the drivers park in a secure area near the media centre and then enter the paddock by walking through a tunnel. The drivers from the bottom 3 or 4 teams sometimes use the swipe gates adjacent to the Paddock Club which means Paddock Club patrons have a chance to meeting those drivers as they arrive.

The track is a 30-minute drive from the city but those times can blow out to a couple of hours over the race weekend.

Budapest is a magnificent city and if you book far enough ahead, you can find great hotels at modest prices. My favourite is the Kempinski Corvinus; their bistro is a real winner. It’s situated on Erzsebet ter (Elizabeth Square) and is home to an impressive ferris wheel. Over the race weekend, this area attracts hundreds of thousands of Hungarians happy to party til the wee hours, often drinking wine and beer from bottles in full view of police. They seem to turn a blind eye unless someone gets unruly.

Head down to the Danube to view the parliament building at dusk, it’s a sight to see, but note though that one of the bridges over the Danube prohibits normal cars from traversing it. I copped a fine for crossing it in my rental car in 2023.

I’m a big fan of this event and if you’ve never been to Hungary, I suggest this might be an event you too would enjoy.