338,000 fans were in attendance at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve over the 2022 Canadian Grand Prix weekend as Formula 1 returned to Montreal for the first time since 2019.
Formula 1 was back in Montreal for the first time since 2019 and fans flocked to the circuit to see the pinnacle of motorsport race at the Canadian Grand Prix once more. The 70-lap race was won by Max Verstappen, who became Circuit Gilles Villeneuve’s 24th different winner since the venue first joined the Formula 1 calendar in 1978.
338,000 fans passed through the turnstiles over the 2022 Canadian Grand Prix weekend. The figure is up 31,000 on the last Montreal race in 2019, when 307,000 fans were in attendance.
Attendance figures for the Canadian Grand Prix prior to 2017 are treated with some scepticism. In 2017, the race promoter announced that a record 360,000 fans were in attendance over the race weekend. That made it the best-attended race of the season.
However, in December 2018, when that year’s attendance figures were released, F1 retrospectively changed the attendance figure for the 2017 race to just 180,000, raising questions about how exactly Montreal’s race attendance figures had been calculated in the past. The exact figure for the 2018 race was not publicly released but is believed to have been under 200,000 for a second year in succession.
Wet weather disrupts proceedings
Ted Kravtiz noted on Sky Sports F1 that the organisation of this year’s Canadian Grand Prix had “slightly shown that they haven’t had a race for three years”. There was strong demand for access to the pit lane walk on Thursday, which reached full capacity, leading to long queues and some fans being turned away without access.
The weather in the early part of the weekend did not help matters on the organisational side of things. Heavy rain – and even a tornado warning – on Thursday saw F1 Experiences’ trackside activities shifted to Saturday.
On Saturday, the planned driver autograph session was cancelled due to traffic issues. Fans who had waited in the rain to meet the drivers were offered signed cards to collect from the Fan Zone later in the day. Many were disappointed to find that these cards had only printed autographs, rather than being hand-signed.
Two Canadians on the grid
For the first time since 1969, two home drivers started their home race at the Canadian Grand Prix. Both Lance Stroll and Nicholas Latifi were eliminated in the first part of qualifying on Saturday, but Stroll fought back to pick up a point on Sunday afternoon. This was the third time Stroll scored at the Canadian Grand Prix, having picked up the first points of his F1 career on home soil in 2017. For Latifi, this was his first home race appearance, with Canada absent from the calendar in both 2020 and 2021.
Canada’s motorsport heritage was celebrated over the weekend. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Gilles Villeneuve’s death. On the circuit that bears his name, the Ferrari drivers’ grid slots were painted red in his honour.
Attendance figures continue to grow in 2022
The Canadian Grand Prix continues a strong run of attendance figures at Formula 1 races in 2022. Bahrain’s season-opener attracted a record crowd for the Sakhir circuit, the 2022 Australian Grand Prix was the best-attended weekend sporting event in Melbourne’s history and the Spanish Grand Prix welcomed its biggest race day crowd in almost 15 years.
The brand new Miami Grand Prix attracted 240,000 visitors, while the first ticketed F1 race at Imola since 2006 was a sell-out, with 64,000 in the grandstands on Sunday alone.
Next up is the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, which was the best-attended race of the season in both 2018 and 2019. Silverstone’s weekend attendance figure in 2021 was 356,000, with only the United States Grand Prix (400,000) and the Mexico City Grand Prix (371,000) attracting larger crowds. It’s set to be another record-breaking British Grand Prix weekend in 2022, with tickets already having sold out.
The comments about the organization of the event being disappointing are correct. Saturday was a disaster to get to grandstand 15, 21, etc.. Not only did we have to contend with cold rainy weather (but it’s F1 so of course we did..), the walking area for thousands of people was reduced to a small sidewalk width. There was a single file line to leave to get back to the metro. The police moved the barricades into the road (leaving enough for single lane traffic for cars) to alleviate all the bottleneck, but security promptly put them back in recreating the bottleneck. We were most worried about this on Sunday, but they seemed to have fixed it. They ran out of many team merchandise early Saturday so anyone coming just for Sunday wasn’t able to buy many of their favourite team merchandise. They ran out of water for washing hands at the portapotties early on Sunday. The amount of people smoking weed and cigarettes in the grandstands was disgusting, let alone the binge drinking. Given the price point of most grandstand tickets, it was shocking to see people with no F1 class or respect for other fans of the sport to this degree. I especially felt bad for people who brought their kids and those pregnant having to breathe that in. I don’t know why security didn’t do anything about people breaking under the grandstands to smoke weed. So many people also had zero regard for basic F1 etiquette like no open umbrellas, especially on Sunday given there was no rain. STM did a phenomenal job with the metro transporting thousands of people back and forth in a very organized and timely fashion. The lines to leave the circuit to get onto the metro looked daunting, but moved quickly. Overall, the organization and cleanliness of the GP needs improvement, but so does the ettiquete of those attending.
Thanks for your honest feedbac Kat. Glad to hear the metro service was pretty smooth. Not so good to hear about the antisocial fans in the grandstands.
I agree 100% with Kat — STM operations went off smoothly. Ingress and egress of the track was HORRIBLE!! How they expect 300K+ people to go through two entrances, and then further choke points around the grandstands was absurd. We couldn’t get to our seats on Saturday at the Lance Stroll grandstand and ended up leaving, going back to our hotel and watching the rest of qualifying on TV. They needed more staff services to manage the crowds.. e.g. general admission ticket holders were putting up their chairs on the sidewalks creating more pedestrian traffic problems.
On another note, I really enjoyed the Ferrari undercard race events — they were spectacular and would have liked to seen them race a little longer.
We first attended the race in 2019 and were so impressed with the experience that we decided to comeback as soon as there was another race. This time we came with our son. We, all 3 of us, were impressed with this years race. The STM to and from the circuit went well just like it did in 2019. The security did widen the walkways to Grandstands 15 and 18 as soon as they realized that something needed to be done to reduce the bottleneck, The weather was what it was, you just need to be prepared and expect the unexpected. We had no negative issues with the fans around us, as a matter of fact the experience with them was positive. We had no problems getting to our seats in time, we just left a little early from our resort at Mont Tremblant in case there were transportation issues. All in all, a Fantastic Experience and “We’ll Be Back!”
Great to hear Karl. I have fond memories of attending the race in 2019, the people in Montreal were so friendly and the city is great to explore