Readers who attended the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix at Lusail Circuit share their experience of attending Formula 1’s newest Middle Eastern race
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Rahul from India
Flights & Accommodation: I flew in from Delhi on Thursday morning, excited to experience the Qatar Grand Prix. My friend Andy from Germany and I had decided to attend during last year’s Bahrain GP, and the anticipation had been building ever since. I chose to stay at Centro Capital Rotana, a fantastic budget hotel with excellent amenities, just 800 meters from the Bin Mahmoud Metro Station. It offered the perfect blend of convenience and comfort, making it easy to navigate the city and reach the Lusail Metro. Book early to secure a good rate.
Getting to the Circuit: Doha has a modern metro system, and also offers free shuttle buses from the closest metro station to Lusail Circuit. The metro is also free for holders of 3-day race tickets. All we needed to do was go to the closest metro station, and show our ticket. Easy as that. Once you reach Lusail Station, it’s a 25-30 minute ride to the circuit. This is the option I used all three days, except on Thursday when I used Uber from my hotel to the track for the track walk.
Pit Lane Walk & Initial Impressions: This was my fourth GP, and as always, I was excited about the pit lane walk on Thursday. However, there were no shuttles available from the metro station to the track, so I decided to take an Uber to the circuit. Unfortunately, the security personnel were quite confused about where we were allowed to go, resulting in me and several other fans having to walk approximately 3 kilometers. It was not a good start at all to the weekend!
Ensure you wear comfortable shoes and keep a water bottle handy. The walk was long and tiring but ultimately worth it. Seeing the teams and cars up close during the pit lane walk was an unforgettable experience. The atmosphere was electric, with fans from all over the world sharing their excitement. Sadly, I didn’t see any drivers this time.
Trackside Seating: On Friday, we had tickets to the “Lusail Hill Lounge” hosted by W Doha, which included great food and drinks all day. It was a good experience. I watched the F2 qualifying from my seat in the North Grandstand. This grandstand is amazing, especially if you get the right seats which are at the pit exit and only 40-50 metres from the track. During the race, I saw the wing mirror on the track and told my friend that someone was going to drive over it. Soon after, Bottas did exactly that and it was right in front of us.
Along with Andy, my German friend, I met two superfans with over 150 live races under their belt! It was great to meet them! Andy and the guys were staying at The Radisson Blu Doha. All four of us had seats in the North GrandStand, which is incredibly close to the track, offering an amazing view. There is free seating, but the seats are comfortable. The only improvement I would suggest is that the middle of the stand could use another screen for better visibility.
For those on a budget, I highly recommend the Lusail Hill general admission area (GA) overlooking Turn 1 in Qatar. We watched the F2 Sprint Race from this area, which is very well lit and comfortable. Definitely the best GA area I’ve seen at an F1 race so far.
Getting To/From The Track: From Friday to Sunday, traveling by metro was easy and efficient. While there were extremely long queues for the free shuttle back, requiring a 30-minute walk followed by an hour-long wait, the journey was still manageable.
My advice is to plan your transportation in advance. While Ubers are available, they can be extremely hard to find after the event. The best way is to take the shuttle to Lusail, then use the metro or take an Uber from there. (Don’t even try booking from the circuit; you won’t get it.)
Circuit Entrance & Facilities: The entrances had bag scanners with short queues, and we never waited more than 5 minutes. However, on Saturday, I waited for 45 minutes in a long queue outside the gate until 1:30 PM for the gates to open. We thought that the gates would open at 11 AM, but apparently there was an announcement that they would be opening later. It was very frustrating for all of us waiting in the sun. Even though it can be hard at times, I recommend being patient with security personnel and following their instructions. They may not always have clear information, so give yourself extra time to navigate the venue.
You can use the internal shuttle or walk from the main gate (but be prepared for a long walk). Food options were good, although the queues were very long. Organizers should add more options next year. A great addition was the free water across the track, and the toilets were always clean. Also don’t forget to pack a warm jacket for the evenings. The desert can get surprisingly cold after sundown.
Cool Experiences & Fan Interactions: One of the coolest things was that as an F2 fan, I was thrilled to find out that the Paddocks for F2 and F1 Academy were open to the general public. Although there was no specific time announced, it was worth asking the security or waiting around to catch a glimpse of the future stars. The Fan Forum was great as well. I saw all the drivers and some team principals, like Christian Horner, and up and coming F2 stars like Kimi Antonelli and Isaak Hadjar.
Off-Track Activities & Discovering Doha: There were many things to do off the track, like pit stop practice and other activities. I didn’t attend the Maroon 5 concert, so I can’t comment on that. However, Doha is a great city with excellent and reasonably priced food options compared to many other international cities. The city is extremely safe, making it an excellent destination for families. There were many activities for kids, similar to Bahrain, which shows that the organizers really put in an effort.
Conclusion: Despite the long queues, attending the Qatar Grand Prix was an incredible experience. The excitement of the race, the vibrant atmosphere, and the fan zone interviews and F2 Paddock made it all worthwhile. With a few improvements in transportation and more food options, this could easily become one of my favorite GPs to attend. If you’re planning to go next year, remember to pack wisely, plan your transport, and brace yourself for an unforgettable adventure!
Stephanie from the UK
Travel to Qatar: I flew direct from Manchester in the UK with Qatar Airways. Doha is very well connected to the rest of the world, with flights from many destinations.
Accommodation: We stayed at Element by Westin West Bay Doha, and would recommend. There is a good selection of hotels in the West Bay area and it is well located for the red line of the metro. This line runs from the airport to Lusail so it was convenient for travel to the circuit and for our arrival and departure in Qatar. There are plenty of shops, restaurants and bars around and I would definitely recommend this area of the city.
Getting to Lusail Circuit: We mainly used the metro and shuttle buses to get to the circuit. This is a free option as a complimentary 3 day pass for the metro was available to weekend ticket holders. This was easily available from any metro station (we were told we needed to go to the Gold Club office but there was actually a separate ticket desk). The circuit also provides the shuttle buses free of charge.
The metro was very efficient and clean. Trains ran around every 6 minutes from the DECC station in West Bay to Lusail. Shuttle buses start running 30 minutes before the gates open each day and as we arrived early, we had no problem walking straight on to a bus. The journey to the circuit took around 15 minutes. We did queue for buses on the return journey but this was expected with a crowd leaving at the same time. Friday was OK, we queued for quite a while on Saturday and Sunday was very quick. We heard the circuit had learnt from Saturday and made more buses available on Sunday. The queues were very well organised.
We did also use Uber on Thursday morning as no shuttle buses were running for the pitlane walk. We picked this up from the metro station at Lusail. It was easy enough but there was much confusion about where they could drop off – roads were closed and at various points our driver was turned away and we needed to drive out of the way to get to the gate. Heading back, we waited a while for a car but again it was fairly easy to do. We took an Uber from our hotel in Doha to the circuit on Friday morning as the metro/bus option wouldn’t get us to the circuit as early as we wanted. We had the same issues with roads being closed but it was easy and only cost QR35 (around £8 GBP).
Entering Lusail Circuit: Getting into the circuit each day was very quick and easy. We didn’t queue for long at all. Tickets were scanned and then we went through airport style security scanners. We had already looked at the prohibited items and so had no issues at all.
Main Grandstand: We chose the main grandstand as I believe this is the only one in which seating is reserved. We chose section A and the seats within it were then allocated to us. The view was OK, we could see the cars coming around the final corner and had a good view of the podium.
We did take the chance to check out the view from the Lusail Hill general admission area. This was a good view of the main straight and first corner and if I returned I would probably watch some of the action from here at quieter times.
Food & Drink: It was prohibited to take food and drink into the circuit. Free bottled water was available and we thought this was an excellent initiative. You could help yourself to as much as you wanted and it was readily available from several points in and around the fan zone behind the main grandstand.
Obtaining food was our biggest problem at the circuit. There simply weren’t enough outlets to cope with demand and queues were big and slow moving. We did make use of the Snoonu app on which you could order food from any of the outlets and then pick up from a collection point. This worked well during quieter times but when busy it wasn’t possible to order on the app, presumably due to the volume of customers. I think the ease of obtaining food is something the circuit should look to improve in future years.
Extended Travel: We only had Monday for sightseeing but did make the most of our day in Doha. We walked on the Corniche, visited Souk Waqif and the Vellagio shopping centre (complete with a canal and gondolas!!). From our limited time there, Doha seemed a nice city and there are definitely more places to visit should we return – including the cultural village and the beach at Katara, which looked accessible from the metro red line.
Robert from Germany
I attended the Qatar Grand Prix last year (T2 Grandstand) and this year (North Grandstand). Attendance was noticeably bigger this year. The organization was still great. I didn’t have to wait for a metro shuttle bus on either Friday or Sunday. On Saturday, there was a queue of about 60 minutes, which felt normal at a time when a large number of people are leaving the circuit around the same time. It was great to get a free metro ticket for the weekend this year. I don’t remember this offer from last year.
The fan zone was bigger this year with a larger fan stage and more activities for kids. There was even a separate area of the fan zone just for kids near Turn 1, which must have been a good thing for all the families in attendance. I think some European races could learn from this kind of setup. You need to interest kids in the sport, as well as entertain them while their parents enjoy the racing.
Food prices at the track were reasonable and the weather, as expected, was much cooler than 2023. It was even cold at times due to the wind, but nothing that bothered me too much. All in all, it was a great weekend in Qatar!
Gianne from Philippines
This was my first race weekend, so I had nothing to compare it to, but it was the best experience of my life! As a solo traveler from the Philippines, I attended all three days with general admission tickets. The view from Lusail Hill was fantastic, as I could see the straight and most of the action at Turn 1.
One of the highlights was the drivers’ fan forum, where I got to see all 20 drivers up close. I’m glad they added it this year. I hope they have a meet-and-greet area in the future where drivers can sign merchandise and take selfies. Another highlight was the post-race concert with Maroon 5.
Even though I was alone, I felt completely safe throughout the weekend. There was a strong security presence, and the marshals were always helpful and friendly, which made the experience even more enjoyable.
Pros: Affordable tickets, clean facilities (including the restrooms), free 3-day Metro passes, plenty of security and marshals for crowd control, assistance, and they can even take good photos, ample Metro bus shuttles, unlimited free bottled waters, food was reasonably priced
Cons: Limited food options with long queues, long walk from Lusail Hill to the circuit exit, internal shuttle service only ran until the afternoon (should have operated until the end of the day), driver’s parade did not happen even though it was in the schedule.
