China's only Formula 1 standard racing circuit is not an obvious family attraction, but as I'm an ardent F1 fan and very rarely miss watching a race on the TV, I was not going to pass up an opportunity to go to the Grand Prix while it was on. Luckily the date of the 2011 race coincided with our trip to Shanghai.
It was not my first time to the Shanghai F1 Grand Prix as I attended the race in September 2005, the second race that had been held at the circuit. On that occasion I went with my brother-in-law who was travelling with us.
My 7-year-old daughter often watches bits of races with me at home and recognises several of the drivers, but it doesn't hold her attention for very long. I thought it may be an opportunity to see if she would like to go and see the Formula 1 cars in the flesh ...
Source: wikipedia.com
“A reflection of the oversize country in which it is situated, the Shanghai International Circuit has a massive, futuristic grandstand with two large pontoon-like bridges crossing high above the main straight of the track. The layout is based on the Chinese character 上 (Shang), which translates as “high” or “above” and gives Shanghai its name. The 3.35-mile, circuit has 16 corners of varying types and two long straights. Unusually, it is the back straight that is the longer of the two and that provides the greater opportunity for overtaking.
”-- formula1.about.com
Introduction
- Friday has two 90 minute practice session, one in the morning the other in the afternoon;
- Saturday has a 60 minute practice session in the morning with a 60 minute qualify session in the afternoon;
- Sunday is the race day. The actual race lasts approximately 90 minutes with a build up before hand.
In 2011, the race day build up consisted of:
- a porsche supercup race;
- a charity race in Ferraris road cars;
- a drivers parade on an open top bus (see picture on the right);
- an artistic ceremony with dancers and music;
- the 30-minute pre-race starting procedure where the pit lane is opened and the drivers take their cars to the grid
Tickets and Seating
There are tickets for all budgets for the whole weekend, range from RMB 380 for a general admittance ticket which gives you access to only the grass banking areas to RMB 3,280 for the best seats in the main grandstand. Or if you really want to splash out you can buy the Paddock Club tickets which for not far short of £3,000 (RMB 30,000) will give you VIP access to the pit lane and gourmet meal. You can also buy Friday only tickets at RMB 80 that allow access to the main grandstand.
There are several grandstands around the circuit and not all of them are under cover, which is something to keep in mind when the race is held in April as rain can often occur. Several previous Chinese Grands Prix races have been affected by rain.
The grandstands line the track from last few corners of the lap to the long first corner.
The best seats are in the upper part of the main grandstand. These seats here allow you to see approximately 75% of the whole circuit. The only parts you cannot see are a section in turn 2 of the circuit and the end of the back straight, the final hairpin and the straight to the last corner. The 'platinum' seats in the upper grandstand are level with the start line. The lower main grandstand, while getting you closer to the action, leaves you with much more restricted viewing of the start/finish straight and pits only. In 2005 and 2011 I watched the race from the upper tier of the main grandstand.
The next best seats are the grandstands that surround the hairpin near the end of the circuit as there is normally a lot of overtaking and incidents there.
- one 3-day grandstand ticket (for me);
- two Friday only grandstand tickets (for my wife and daughter).
I bought the tickets from Formula1.com about a month before the races started. Formula1.com is the official website run by FOM (Formula One Management) and they sell their tickets through a company called WWTE which is a subsidiary of Expedia. So pretty reputable. There are other companies from which you can buy tickets, but prices weren't that much cheaper, if at all. So I decided to go with Formula1.com.
The tickets can only be picked up at the circuit during the race weekend, and you will need your ticket confirmation and passport for proof of identification. The race day tickets have a numbered seat, but on a Friday you can sit anywhere in the main grandstand.
Getting There
Source: exploreshanghai.com
As a foreigner with only a rudimentary grasp of Chinese, I found the Chinese announcements at the metro station difficult to understand. The English version of the announcements on the train only tell you the next station when you are about to arrive at the station, not before you set off from the previous station. So do make sure that you check the destination of the Line 11 train before you get on.
We went as a family on the Friday of the race weekend in 2011. It was an opportunity for me to familiarise myself with the route for Sunday as I would be going on my own. Not many people went on the Friday so the metro train was not that crowded. The train we got went to North Jiading (北嘉定), so we had to change at the Jiading Xincheng (嘉定新城) station for the Anting branch.
There were a lot more people on the Sunday and unless you got the train from Jiangsu Road (江苏路) station, the terminus of Line 11, it was standing room only.
At the Circuit
After picking up your tickets from a booth outside the circuit entrance, you make your way to the main entrance which is behind the main grandstand and go through the security checks where the police check the contents of your bags. To get through the main entrance you just need to place your ticket on a sensor at the turnstiles. Being China, there's always more staff than is necessary and they are only too willing to swipe the ticket for you.
The area that runs behind the back of the full length of the main grandstand is the main off-circuit activity area. This consists of merchandising stalls, food and drink stands, a stage and a small karting track.
- The merchandising stalls sell official team wear and Formula 1 branded merchandise at prices that are considered expensive even in Western standard. In 2011 there was a large Mercedes stand which had a display of Mercedes cars through the years including a futuristic concept car. My daughter really liked this stand.
For my 2005 visit, there were more variety of stands as there were more car manufacturers involved then and each had their own stand so there was a lot more to see. - The food and drink stalls are standard fare at large sporting events with fast food, beers and Coca-Cola related drinks. The queues do get very long, but there are different stalls for Western and Chinese food. Everyone at the stalls speak English so there are no language problems to worry about.
- The main attraction is the stage and the karting track. The track is small and as the queue was very long on each day, so I gave it a miss. I don't know if you had to pay to go on or not. There were a combination of a girl band playing music and a girl dance troupe performing on the stage area that drew a small crowd.
The seating in the grandstands are multi-coloured plastic seats. There is not that much room between rows, if someone wants to get passed you will have to stand and there is still not that much room for the person to get through especially if you have a bag with you. So people often revert to stepping on an over any free seats to get to their own seats to avoid troubling other people. As a result the seats can get quite dirty, a lot of the locals take something like a plastic bag to sit on.
In terms of toilet amenities, I can only comment on the main grandstand. In every stairwell in the level between the upper and lower tiers are located the men's and women's toilets. The men's toilets have a lot of urinals and quite a few cubicles. The smell wasn't great and some of the urinals didn't drain very well. There were about 4 sinks to service everyone, which was not enough and there was not any paper to wipe your hands (which is not unusual for China). The women's toilets apparently were quite clean according to my wife and daughter.
When you arrive and leave the circuit be aware that you will encounter a lot of people selling ear plugs, ticket touting and offering car rides to central Shanghai to Westerners in broken English. They are not too pushy, a friendly "bú yào" (I don't want) will stop them pestering you.
The Noise
The noise can be quite painful on the ears, so ear plugs are essential. The earplugs don't block out everything, you can still hear people talking, but the high frequency sounds are lessened.
Earplugs are supplied with the tickets but these aren't really suitable for children. It's hard to squeeze them small enough to get them into the ear canal of a child to keep them in place. Unfortunately this was a problem for my daughter and the noise proved too much for her that she insisted on leaving the grandstand 10 minutes into the 90 minute practice session, which was a shame. She spent the rest of the time with my wife walking around and looking at the stalls.
What we should have done was to buy some noise cancelling headphones. These were on offer for RMB 200 outside the main entrance, but by the time we realised we needed something like this we were inside and could not get out again. I can't vouch for the quality of these, but RMB 200 is a reasonable price for something like that. So if you are taking children I would certainly recommend some headphones or ear defenders. I would definitely do that for my daughter if she ever wants to go to another Formula 1 race again - although I think this experience may have put her off for life.
Leaving the Circuit
The actual race on Sunday is always the last event of the day so everyone leaves the circuit at the same time. On that Sunday, I decided to stay a bit and watch some of the post race activities such as checking the legality of the cars in part fermé. Not very interesting if you are not an F1 buff, but I just wanted to miss the mad rush to the metro station. I left it for about 45 minutes, when I did leave there were still quite a few people in the paddock area behind the main grandstand. As the queue for the metro station was still very long I went and did a bit of exploring.
I found that there was a tented food and drink area cooking all manner of food and selling beer. The things on offer seemed to be aimed at Germans as a lot of the beer on sale were German brands and a fair bit of the Western foods being sold were wursts (sausages). Outside the tented area there was a seating area which was heavily packed with people eating and drinking, no doubt waiting for the metro queues to die down, and a stage with a band playing rock music.
In the end I decided to brave the metro. The operators had put in a queuing system to control how many people were let into the station at any one time. Queuing is not something that the Chinese do as it usually is a free for all. For a Briton, queuing is a national pastime so it was something I was happy to see! People were herded into roped off pens organised in rows and held there. As the pens infront gradually empties the pens in the rows behind were gradually released. It took a good hour to get into the actual station.
In the station itself the platform was packed the train was infrequent, no extra services seemed to have been put on for the event. When the next train arrived in the station everyone piled on and it was very packed. Since most people were going to the city centre if you didn't get a seat here you would be standing all the way. If you are desperate to get a seat the best thing would be to take a train in the opposite direction and change. It was fairly late when I finally got back to our apartment in the Huangpu district, tired but happy.
If you are in Shanghai while the race is on and you're into Formula 1 this is a must-see event. Unless all the family enjoy motorsport and can endure the noise it isn't really a suitable place for a family visit. The race day, especially, is a long and tiring day with the travelling, queuing and walking. You'll also spend most of the race standing to see the action as everyone else around you will also be standing. You'll end the day with aching legs.
- Upper tier of the main grandstand has the best view of the circuit
- Make sure you take the Anting branch metro train on Line 11
- Use earplugs and take noise cancelling headphones/ear defenders for children
- Stagger your leaving time on race day to avoid a large queue time for the metro
| Attraction Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Attraction: | Shanghai International Circuit (上海国际赛车场) | |
| Address: | 2000 Yining Road, Jiading District 伊宁路2000号, 嘉定区 | |
| Getting there: | nearest metro station is "Shanghai Circuit" (上海赛车场),  Line 11 (Anting branch) | |
| Opening hours: | race weekends only | |
| Admission: | ticket holders only | |
| Website: | http://www.icsh.sh.cn (Chinese) http://www.racing-china.com (Chinese) | |
| More information: | ||
| Map: | View Shanghai 4 Kids in a larger map | |
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