Hungary 2025 Review - Our First non-US Race

Lifelong F1 fan here.. I've been to Miami 3 years in a row, and decided to take the family to Europe for our first race outside the US and make it into a nice vacation.

We flew from DC to Budapest on Wednedsay last week. Nice easy flight to Vienna and a quick hop to Budapest, arriving on Thursday afternoon.

We took a taxi (using Fotaxi stands at the airport) to our hotel - the Matild Palace. It was a tremendous choice, though in a touristy (and tourist trap laden) part of town. But it's an incredibly nice hotel. Thanks to all my business travel we were able to use points to fund our rooms, as it would've been wildly expensive the old fashioned way..

First impressions of Budapest - it's quiet, pretty, clean (what we've seen of it anyway), and seems like a very nice vacation destination. Food has been excellent with tons of choices. Easy to get around, very walkable, tons of history. I wish we had more time here.

We got a good night's rest on Thursday and met our driver at 11am Friday for the ride to the Hungaroring. The driver dropped us at this location - https://maps.app.goo.gl/aQ1xoBihCh3ZhZJJ9 - which was a short walk to Gate 6, which is right by the Apex 2 Blue Zone stands where our seats were. At the end of the day the driver met us the same spot, and while we were stuck in a touch of traffic it wasn't bad. We made it back to Budapest in less than an hour, freshened up, and went to dinner on Fashion street - oddly seated next to a bunch of what I assume were Lamborghini executives, as they were all A) Italian and B) wearing Lamborghini lapel pins on their fancy suits.

Saturday we met a different driver from the same company at 10am for the ride, which took about 10min longer than on Friday. Crowds were MUCH heavier on Saturday as expected. Great day of racing and quali, but then the trouble started. Our driver admitted he had never been to the ring before, and he didn't know how to get back to our meetup point. We ended up having to walk ~2 miles through fields and down dusty roads to find him, only to sit in another 90min of traffic. I'm fine with it, but my daughter has a medical condition which makes that an issue. Luckily she was OK so it was a minor inconvenience. At least I got my steps in.

Sunday we were out at 11am again to get to the track, and while I was on the way back to the hotel after a coffee run I ran into Lance Stroll as he was leaving. Nice kid, though he looked like he just rolled out of bed.. After reaching out to the car service they apologized profusely for Saturday's issue and put us with a great driver who knew exactly what to do. After the race we were in the van within 20min of walking out of gate 6 and only sat in traffic for about 75min before we made it back to the hotel.

All in all, tremendous experience. The fans, the sights, and the excitement are incredibly different than what we've experienced in the US. The race was great, and the view from our seats was excellent. The food at the track, amenities, and activities were fun as well. It was a smash hit for the family, and after a couple more days being tourists in the city we will head back home.

Here's a video from my seat of the McLaren boys on the last turn before the checkered flag

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View from one of the GA seating areas in the Fanzone, not bad. Seemed like a lot of the GA areas had great views.

Some of the food options

More food options

Good view of the driver parade