Day 3 of our Hungary trip and it was time for the main event - the Formula 1 at the Hungaroring race track. One of the older formula 1 tracks, Hungaroring was built in 1986 and was the location of the first Formula One Grand Prix held behind the Iron Curtain.
Continue reading to see how you can go to see the Formula 1 at this underrated Hungarian race track!!
Located approximately 20 KM outside of the city of Budapest, Hungaroring is one of the more affordable F1 races to go to. I purchased the tickets as a Christmas present for Mr. Sheddon from ‘Motorsport Tickets’ and found them very easy to deal with! If you book when the tickets are first released you can avail of early bird offers with ‘general admission’ tickets going for around €60-70 for 3 day weekend.
The general admission tickets mean that you don’t have access to an actual seat but can walk around and try find a spot on the ground to watch. Because it’s quite a hilly circuit, there are lots of great vantage points so if you want a really affordable weekend, general admission wouldn’t be too bad.
As these were to be a Christmas present, I decided to book seats for us. We were in Silver 2, just in front of the last turn and had a fantastic view of the finish line! I think I paid about €120 per ticket, which was so good for the three days.
The other great thing about the Hungary Grand Prix was the cost of food and drink!! When we went in 2019 it was approx €3 for a cold can or pint of Heineken and around €5 for food, so really really affordable, especially compared to some of the more popular tracks like Silverstone and Monaco.
Langos - a traditional Hungarian street food. It’s a deep fried flat bread served with sour cream and grated cheese. Simple but delicious!!!
They even had buckets of cocktails like Mohitos and Sex on the Beach. Who needs Thailand 😉
All of the amenities at the track were great actually, plenty of toilets so no long walks or crazy queues. Large number of stands for food and drinks, all accepting card so no need to worry about cash. We used our Revolut cards for everything. Free drinking water located around the track, which was brilliant especially in that heat!! There were plenty of shops to buy merchandise from all the different teams - the prices for these were similar to what you would pay online.
How to get to the Race Track
Even though the Hungaroring circuit is only 20 km away from Budapest city, it’s not the easiest to get to and can take a small bit of figuring out. Here is a list of the ways to get there and what we did to get there.
Taxi - an expensive option at approx. €40 each way. Also not the best option for the last day as you will struggle to get a taxi with the thousands of other people also looking to travel back via this route. We had planned to take a taxi home but knew there was no possible way of doing this unless we wanted to wait for hours and hours to get one.
Train - this is probably the slowest method and what we did on the first day. To be honest we found it very complicated and wouldn’t really recommend going this way. So you need to get to the last station at the eastern end of the red metro line (M2) called ‘Örs Vezér Tere’ (just put this station into Google maps and it will tell you how to get there!). When you get to this station you need to exit, cross the road under an underpass where you will find a small train stop. Board the train going to Gödollo.
Get off at the Kerepes Hèv station. This is where things got confusing for us. We got off at this station with a few other people and we had read that there should be a free shuttle bus, however, there wasn’t! We waited around for about 30 minutes and eventually had to ask a couple if we could share their taxi with them 🙈 I’m not sure what happened to the shuttle bus or if it ever turned up, but we didn‘t try this option again!
I have read that the shuttle buses are going from that station this year, but I’m just sharing the experience that we had.
Free Shuttle - this was the option that we took for the Saturday and Sunday. We went to the same metro station noted above - Örs Vezér Tere’. This time you head outside the station and you will see a number of bus stops and signs for the F1. You will also see massive queues for for the buses, that's that’s how you know you are in the right place. I think we queued at most around 40 minutes for the shuttle bus on the main race day and maybe 20 minutes on the Saturday, which was fine. We picked up breakfast in the metro station (it has loads of food outlets) and ate them while we queued. The bus then takes you directly to the entrance gates so it was definitely worth the wait!!
Formula 1 top tips
Budapest in August is hot🥵 and also has random rain showers! Make sure to bring a light rain jacket and a hat with you as you will be sitting for hours.
The beer Is cold, cheap and delicious, but make sure to drink plenty of water too. In that heat it can be very easy to get dehydrated and a bit too drunk.
Comfy shoes!! Unfortunately on the day of the main race you will be standing for a long time to get home, make sure your feet are comfy!!Have a backpack and some easy to reach snacks - it’s a full day there with queues for the food stands and to leave, make sure you have some snacks with you to keep you going!
Don’t queue for the official bus on the last day, you will wait for literal hours!! Instead bypass the queue and walk straight out of the gates. Walk to the train station (approx 15 mins walk) and wait for a train back to the city. There will still be a large queue, but there's a pub at the station so you can use toilets and get refreshments while you wait.
