Mr. Amusing and I went to Austin to watch the F1 race. Our first ever trip without the kids, we left them with my parents and drove to Austin. I have never been to the race before, but Mr. Amusing has. He went the first year it was at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas track back in 2012. I didn’t go that year because Ian was only a couple of months old at the time.
He told me a lot has improved since he was there 4 years ago. That first year the food choice was limited to hot dogs, when we were there it seemed every food truck from Austin was there as well as brick and mortar concession stands.
So Friday and Saturday are all practice days, not only is the F1 race going on but there are other races as well. There was a Porsche and Historic, which is older model F1 cars no longer racing, race as well. The race track isn’t actually in Austin, it’s about 30-40 minutes out of town. On day 1 the crowds are very minimal, this is the day you want to buy any souvenirs, the inventory is limited and by actual race day most of what you would want is sold out.
There were cut outs of the drivers near the entrance so we took some photos with them.
Louis Hamilton, he has won the race here 4 times!
Jenson Button, our Jensen may or may not be slightly inspired by this Jenson.
Sebastian Vettel, Mr. Amusing originally wanted to name Ian, Sebastian. We settled on Ian.
Day 1 also let Mr. Amusing take his time with taking photos around the track at different vantage points. We had actual seats in the stands, but since day 1 is practice day you can familiarize yourself with the track.
Even though it was mid-October it was still very sunny, so hat and sunscreen was a must!
That evening we wandered around downtown Austin with our friends, who actually came to the race with us as well. We went to Voodoo Donuts and that was really about it. At 10 pm we all declared we were old and tired and went our separate ways to sleep. 🙂
Day 2 was more crowded, but more of the same wandering and taking pictures. At night was the headliner concert and the main reason I went to the race with Mr. Amusing. Don’t get me wrong I like F1, but I was there for Taylor Swift!! We actually went back to our rented apartment and rested a bit before coming back out to the track. The audience changed drastically that evening, instead of middle aged adults milling around it was teenage girls with their moms. The concert was lawn seating, so we actually go to go down on to the track and took a few photos. Taylor Swift has a very strict camera policy so these are cell phone photos.
We ended up choosing not to fight with what seemed like millions of teenage girls for a seat in the grass and went to our bleacher seats directly across from the stage.
Then we sat in traffic for what felt longer than the actual concert itself :/
Then it was Day 3, race day! This was definitely the most crowded day. General seating, which is lawn seating was PACKED. The walk to our seats was very crowded too.
The race was very uneventful and Lewis Hamilton won the race by 4.5 seconds. Still enjoyable to watch and went much quicker than it does on TV. Before the race there was a air display from the US Air force from Fort Hood and a parade which was the drivers on a flat bed waving at the fans.
Mr. Amusing took many photos of the cars racing. Here are two of my favorites.
The feature photo is a great capture of Lewis Hamilton during his victory lap and the British flag in the foreground, as Hamilton is from the UK.
If you plan on attending the F1 race in Austin, I highly recommend staying with a friend or using Airbnb, which is what we did. Saved us tons of money as all the hotels were 2x the normal price and all sold out. Here are a couple of photos of the apartment/loft we stayed at. Pics are kind of dark since we took them in the morning.
If you are interested here’s the link to airbnb room we rented. Not sponsored just passing on knowledge.
So that was a recap of the 3 ish days we were at Austin. Have you been to an F1 race before?
