hi everyone
just thought I’d add a couple of comments about going to the Catalunya grand prix, as I couldn’t find too much online from people that had been before with advice.
in essence, the grand prix is very well organised, transport is very easy and good value!
we stayed about 10 stops north of Barcelona on the Metro, so getting into town/making the coach pickup points was easy. we bought 3-day travelcards which were 18.50E each, so we could travel as much as we wanted on the Metro.
the Sagales coaches ran very efficiently, they pretty much fill up one coach after another, the timetable goes out of the window. tickets were only 9E each (return) per day and could be bought online in advance (or on the day). however you have to take your print out to a little office by the pickup point to exchange your printout for tickets. MAKE SURE you get your return tickets for that day at the same time! you can get them at the circuit by the collection point, but it’s much easier to do all in one go. even getting the coach back on race day, there was a massive queue, but it moved all the time and we were only in it for 8-10mins: they just fill a coach and go, fill a coach and go…
the coach took about 30mins to get to the circuit, and drops you off about 5/10min stroll from Entrance 4 (south end of main grandstand).
as long as you don’t have any glass or cans, you can take in whatever food/drink you like: beer in water bottles, etc. Food/drink was obviously more costly inside, but it wasn’t horrendous, unless you were planning to eat/drink loads. We just went to a supermarket and bought water/drinks/snacks and picked some freshly-made baguettes from a stall on the market on La Rambla the day before and stuck them in the mini fridge in the hotel room!
a taxi from the main airport to just outside the city would cost you about 35-40E.
happy to answer any Qs if anyone’s thinking about going next year – it’s a great atmosphere and a very easy trip!
