Can You Go To Monaco Grand Prix Without The Ticket? - YES.
How To Attend The Monaco Grand Prix For Cheap?
Update: read the latest article on going to Monaco GP without the tickets here.
Last year, we stumbled into, let’s call it an adventure, at the Monaco Grand Prix, and we did it all without the ticket.
It began when my husband and I got hooked on watching "Drive to Survive". Yes, I know what you want to say but bear with us.
Caught up in the excitement, I promised to him that we'd make it to Monaco, despite finding out that all tickets were sold out.
But I was definitely not going to give up.
After some clever planning, we found a travel agency heading to Cannes during the Grand Prix weekend. We joined their trip, planning to sneak off to Monaco on race day.
Now about the Monaco GP without the tickets part- I reached out to every café and restaurant near the track and asked them about their viewing options. Most of the places were either sold out or totally out of our budget.
But to our luck, one place had a "viewing package" for just 30 euros—no Grand Prix ticket needed!
And so our journey began! We stayed in Cannes and took an early train to Monaco on race day. Despite our fears of being turned away without tickets, we confidently presented our reservation at Stars 'n' Bars, a restaurant near the track. Astonishingly, they guided us into the VIP line! I’m not making this up.
We followed the VIP crowd shocked that this is really happening. No one even questioned our lack of official lanyards. We breezed through security and into Stars 'n' Bars, positioned perfectly behind the pit stops and right in front of the MEDIA CENTRE.
The rest of the story is short, don't worry.
We watched the race on the huge screen at the restaurant. Took photos of their amazing collection of memorabilia! Took a photo of Mika Hakkinen's car that's mounted on the wall of the restaurant.
Ate, drank, and just fully enjoyed ourselves.
When the race finished we realized that all of the drivers will be walking past us in order to get to the Media Centre so we waited outside to see them.
Here is how that went:
We walked around the track after the post-race show ended. Saw Nico Rosberg, Carlos Sainz Senior, and I even got Zhou's autograph!
It was honestly such an unreal experience that I don't think will happen ever again.
Not because we won't be able to visit Monaco once again, but because it was our first Grand Prix ever, we had zero expectations, and the overall bar was low. Extremely low.
We just wanted to experience the atmosphere and see Monaco in person, but in the end it turned out to be a once in a lifetime experience that still feels out of this world.
P.s. next year we bought the Monaco GP General Admission tickets. You can read our review here.
"But you didn't went to the track"
I know some of you will say that we didn't even got to see the race in person. I agree. We weren't there on the Grandstands or General Admission and we didn't get to see any racing in person- just via TV. But considering the rain, red flag and everything that went down, we were actually really happy to be inside the restaurant with pizza and unlimited beer at our disposal.
*Drive to Survive
I don't want to sound hypocritical and say that the show is bringing unnecessary drama to the sport, when that drama is the very thing that made me watch Formula 1...but I have to say it.
Netflix is creating fake tension between the drivers and forcefully portraying teammates as enemies. It took me a while to realise that, but I did.
I'm happy that I watched the first 5 seasons because the show was my entry ticket to the world of Formula 1. I also learned a lot about the history of the current teams on the grid, the relationships between the principals, about all the switches, silly season, etc.
However, I'm not a fan of the show anymore, and I sincerely hope that they stop dramatizing the sport.
As Seb said in a post-race interview after the Bahrain Grand Prix in 2018
"We fight someone and sometimes we go wheel-to-wheel, and it's close, and we have a lot of adrenaline going. Do you think, if you compare it to football, if you have a microphone on a footballer's mouth that everything he says is something nice, and it's a nice message when the guy tackles him and sometimes he fouls him? I don't think it's justified to give us this kind of shit question and making up a story out of nothing. It's a human reaction, and sometimes I feel it's all a bit blown up and artificial if we have these questions trying to make something out of nothing."
The views expressed in the articles are the personal views of the fans and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of the Pitlanemag.com website
