F1 Fanatic

Hello all,

I have been to many european races but never Monza and I’m planning to change that this year, it looks like I may be going alone now so was looking for some top tips.

I’m on a budget but Ive figured I can get plane ticket, hotel for 4 nights and a grandstand seat at parabolica for about £400+ so wondered how easy this is to do as a DIY race so to speak. Is it easy getting from Milan to Monza and what things should I be aware of?

Your info will be much appreciated

As Keith says getting to Monza from Milan by train is easy. The trains run from Milan Centrale Station and were (not sure if still the case) free on Qualifying and Race day. It is very busy and can be a bit manic at times but adds to the experience. Once you arrive in Monza station you follow the signs with the circuit outline on them which take you to the free buses that run from outside the station. These take you straight into the park, however these drop off at a central point and then you have to walk for circa 20 minutes from there to the circuit entrance, then it is another 20 minutes roughly to get to the entrance gates (it is in park remember.) Some of trains also go to the station at the circuit, but only a few, so if you get lucky you may get one of those, othewise just to Monza itself.

I agree with Keith about Monza. It is probably one of the cheaper races to attend in Europe but the atmosphere is amazing. Food wise, yes would agree again. Decent quality and not to ott re price.

Thanks for your tips guys, me and a mate have now booked flights and a grandstand seat on the pit straight in the end so just need to find a suitable hotel likely in Milan centre so we can soak up the atmosphere and get the trains in easily

Mick,
As has been said above trains from Milan are straight forward. However there are many different options depending where your hotel is and how long you’re staying. There are free trains from Central Station on Saturday/Sunday but there are more frequent trains from Porta Garabaldi so if you’re there on Thursday/Friday we found this better; in fact we used Porta Garibaldi everyday. You can reach this station form anywhere in milan using either the Metro M1/M2/M3 lines (http://www.atm-mi.it/en/Pages/default.aspx) or the tram system or if you’re close to a Suburban station you could use that; S1,S2,S5,S6 and S13 all pass through Porta Garibaldi.
Trains from P.G are direct to Monza regularly and take about 15mins on the Surburban network as the S8 and S11 Trains – run by Trenord – all go to Monza (2€). If I remember rightly Lesmo can be reached on the Regional network from P.Garibaldi but it takes about 40mins and you may have to change in Sesto No.1 Maggio or Monza if you use Suburban to get that far. See (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_suburban_railway_network) and (http://www.msrmilano.com/) for more details and (http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=ad1ce14114bc9110VgnVCM10000080a3e90aRCRD) to check train times. I know it looks a bit complex but really it’s quite straight forward. A couple of points though; P.G station has an info desk. We found that very inefficient. Simply buy ticket at the the machine (it has English option). Secondly, remember to validate your ticket – time/date stamp before platform entrance – before you get on the train. First time we were in a hurry and didn’t – fortunately a pretty ticket inspector let us off an instant fine, but not without a lecture!

Yeah, we considered doing Maranello last year but just didn’t find the time! We’re camping at the circuit this year – flying out on the Wednesday and staying until Monday – but we’ll see about Maranello!
The old banking is pretty impressive but we found it was only accessible on the Thursday; they closed off for Fri/Sat/Sun. Probably because they couldn’t prevent access onto the used track otherwise. So if you’re keen to get on, Thursday’s best bet.

Andrew, You can camp at the circuit, you can either just turn up or you can pre book it through monza’s website. If you pre book then has to be a minimum of 4 nights.

Depends what time you arrive in Malpensa, but there is a bus that goes from the airport to Milan Centrale Train Station which was from what I can remember very reasonable.