There are several price levels for F1 tickets, the most expensive of which is the paddock club.
I later learned that the price of this ticket was about $8,000, almost a hundred times the price of the grass tickets I often bought when I was a student. The paddock club provides a lounge, just above the team's maintenance area. The overall atmosphere inside is similar to that of an airport VIP lounge, and the TV screens on the wall broadcast the latest race information in real time.
In short, the viewing experience is incomparable to that of grass tickets, where one can only sit on the ground and endure the wind and sun.
The paddock club, which has been around for a long time, was a service that Bernie, the former head of F1, came up with in the 1980s to generate revenue for F1. Inviting VIPs to experience F1 up close is often seen as the invisible engine driving F1's commercial expansion. After Liberty Media took over F1 in 2017, it further developed the paddock club and added an experience project that had never been available during Bernie's time - the track tour. It almost 100% replicated the driver's parade before the race, allowing VIP guests holding paddock club passes to ride the same truck as the driver around the track and receive attention and cheers from the stands. Of course, the track tour is just one of many experience projects. The people who were invited here, including me, were completely immersed in the atmosphere of celebration and put the race behind them.
If it weren't for the invitation from Qatar Airways, I don't think I would have come to the race on Friday. After all, it was not an important race day. The only F1-related race on that day was the sprint qualifying race that started at 3pm and ended at 4:14pm. Driving 35 kilometers from the city for a 44-minute race is very tiring, and it is actually true. In addition, if you happen to be a fan of Hamilton and Ferrari at the same time, you must feel even more wonderful. (Hamilton, who won the sprint qualifying championship, finished sixth in the Sunday race, but was eventually disqualified because it was found that the thickness of the car's bottom plate was lower than the requirement.)
I would like to say a few more words about paddock club. Although paddock club is also sold to the public, on-site observations are mostly based on invitations from F1 sponsors. LVMH, which newly joined this year, is currently F1's largest sponsor, and Qatar Airways will officially become F1's global partner and official airline in 2023.
Regardless, it is a rare experience to be able to watch F1 from such a close distance. The paddock is something you can only understand by walking in and taking a look at it yourself, and the cars are secondary. The driver parade is just a small invention of Liberty Media. In order to make F1, a cruel sport, look better, they installed more cameras on the track and in the paddock, which was unimaginable in Bernie's era. The team's maintenance area was never allowed to be touched by anyone.
Liberty Media broke it, and now all the conflicts, contradictions and dramatic moments of the sport are captured by cameras all over the paddock and processed into F1's official documentary "Drive to Survive".
"Drive" has added tens of millions of viewers to F1 in the past four years. These new viewers may not care about tire strategy or who finishes the race first, and may not even have heard of Schumacher's name, but they will like the driver's posts on social media. Without Liberty Media, F1 may really only be able to survive by relying on hardcore regulars who swear allegiance.
I heard that the number of spectators at the stadium this year has hit a new high. However, there must be many people who hold similar ideas such as "I like sports, but I hate crowds of people crowding around", which is of course a healthy idea. For those who don't understand the rules and just want to watch a game, grass tickets are enough to comfort people, although the price has increased a lot compared to ten years ago. Sitting outdoors to watch the game, a jacket of moderate thickness is essential. After all, it is early spring and the wind on the stadium is always particularly strong. Hats are necessary, and sunglasses are also needed. As for water, you can only buy it inside the stadium.
Speaking of water, there is another episode. In line with the concept of sustainable development, this year F1 officials require that all plastic bottled water be banned in the paddock. I understand that this has nothing to do with sustainability, after all, brands like Heineken have paid huge sponsorship fees. However, when the staff checked the bags, they even did not let go of the water in the thermos cup and mercilessly poured it into the flowerbed, which was really ridiculous.
Haruki Murakami once said in his criticism of the Olympics, "There is no such thing as a sports festival. It is nothing more than a country and a giant company working together to organize an event for the same purpose. The principle is investment and return, and sports are just a means to achieve the goal." At that moment, I once again felt the reality of this sentence. Fortunately, the drinks at the paddock club are free, so I calmed down a little.
If you are interested in F1, please check out the previous series of articles related to F1 in the column of QIUQI
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