Image credit: Kamarás
If you’re heading to the Hungarian Grand Prix there’s four main ways you can get to the circuit: drive, take a taxi, use public transport or take a direct city shuttle bus.
Each of those options has their pros and cons, so I’ve put together this guide with my tips on getting to the Hungaroring, taken from my experience travelling to Budapest, to hopefully make your journey easier
Hungaroring Location - Budapest
The Hungaroring Formula 1 circuit is located a 30 minute drive North-East from the centre of Budapest, just on the outskirts of a small village called Mogyoród.
If you’re visiting Hungary for the F1 then you’ll want to stay in Budapest. It’s the capital city and there is masses to see and do in the city itself. It’s full of history, culture and amazing architechture, spread out either side of the beautiful Danube river.
There’s thousands of places to eat and drink, my favourite was Tako – a tiny little Mexican Taco shop tucked away that does fantastic cheap Tacos, where everyone eats in the courtyard of some wonderful old buildings.
The Hungarian Grand Prix is always in the summer, in either July or August. That time of year Budapest will be hot. Expect 30+ degrees Celcius almost every day, so dress accordingly especially at the F1 where there’s little shade.
If you’ve got time to kill in the city and need to cool off you can check out the world famous thermal baths. I went to a smaller one called the Gellert Baths, but would recommend trying the more popular Széchenyi Baths as well.
When you’ve finished killing time around the city, you need to start planning your journey to the Hungaroring circuit using either a car, a taxi, public transport or a city shuttle. Here’s my tips on those four methods.
Driving to the Hungaroring
The Hungaroring F1 circuit is a 30 minute drive from the centre of Budapest. Most of the main motorways around Hungary, including the one from Budapest to the circuit, are toll roads. To drive on these legally, you need to pre-purchase an e-vignette.
A 10 day e-vignette for normal 5-seater passenger cars costs €17. A 1 e-vignette costs €14, so assuming you’ll be using the road network in Hungary for more than one day during your trip, it works out much more cost efficient to purchase the 10 day pass.
You can buy the e-vignette online from the official Hungarian National Toll Payment Service here.
Once you’ve got your e-vignette, you can start planning your drive to the track. I’ve written a whole seperate guide for Parking at the Hungarian Grand Prix as it’s quite a complex thing in its own right, so read that for parking info andfor the best tips on where to park depending on where you’ll be watching the race from.
To drive to the track it’s likely you’ll take the M3 motorway (which does need an e-vignette) which goes right past it. The normal exit you would take for the Hungaroring is Exit 19. However, during the Grand Prix weekend, this is the exit all the traffic will take. On Saturday and Sunday in particular taking that exit can mean you sit in gridlock for an hour to cover the 1km from there to the track.
Instead, there’s another option. If you’re travelling away from Budapest, don’t take junction 19. Take the one after. The map below shows the normal busy route in pick, and the better alternative in blue:
The better blue route will take you down a road through a field which is usally eerily quiet, even when the other route is solid with traffic:
Another option is to avoid the M3 motorway all together, and instead take the 3 road all the way to the village of Kerepes. This is usually much, much quieter. The pink road is the busy M3 motorway option, the blue road is the quieter 3 road:
At Kerepes you can make a left turn when you sign a sign post for Szilasliget and the Hungaroring, and that will take you through a little village to the track. This route should be much quieter:
Whether or not you can take the same road to get out of there at the end of the day depends on the way the police are directing you. There are usually a number of one-way systems in place after the race has finished:
To be safe, wherever you’re travelling from, allow an extra 45 minutes to get to the circuit in the morning. Leaving the car parks close to the track can take over an hour, so if that doesn’t sound like much fun you can consider public transport options instead (read further down).
Taxis
Another option if you don’t want to drive yourself is to take a taxi. There are three main companies that service the Hungarian Grand Prix – Uber, Bolt and Főtaxi. All three have an app which you should download in advance.
Last year, Bolt and Uber taxis were dropping off near Gate 3. Főtaxi cars were dropping off and collecting near Gate 8.
Check out my guide on the entrance gates to see which one to aim for.
Usually, getting to the track in the morning with a Taxi is pretty ok, even if you were to leave Budapest at around 9am on Friday and Saturday you’d probably be there within 45 minutes. On Sunday, however, you should leave more time – plan for it to take longer as the taxis will encouter the same traffic as everyone else when they get near the track. But if you get close, you can just get out of the cab and walk the last bit.
That being said, Főtaxi have a dedicated VIP lane on the motorway (the hard shoulder) which should help them avoid some of the traffic when going to the track.
Főtaxi also have fixed pricing for the race, which should work out at roughly 40 Euros for a trip. If that’s split between two or three of you in the cab, that’s pretty reasonable.
| Főtaxi costs Hungarian Grand Prix | ||
|---|---|---|
| Outside Budapest | ||
| Basic fee | 1 100 HUF | €2.87 |
| Percentage fee (per min) | 110 HUF/min | €0.29/min |
| Fee per kilometre | 880 HUF/km | €2.30/km |
| Within the borders of Budapest | ||
| Basic fee | 1 100 HUF | €2.87 |
| Percentage fee (per min) | 110 HUF/min | €0.29/min |
| Fee per kilometre | 440 HUF/km | €1.15/km |
Uber and Bolt don’t have fixed pricing, they have surge pricing so when demand is higher the costs will go up.
It should be easy to use the app for any of the three services to get a taxi from Budapest to the Hungaroring.
Getting a taxi back at the end of the day, however, is a different story.
There is the Főtaxi collection point outside Gate 8. But on Saturday and Sunday at the end of the day the queue for this can be massive. People report waiting for up to 2 hours to get a cab at the circuit. So to avoid that you have a few options:
- Stay at the circuit for a couple of hours after the track action has finished – enjoy the music, food and beer. In that time the queue will have died down and it’ll be much easier to get a cab
- Walk away from the circuit to one of the nearby villages where it’s much easier to find a cab. Within a 30 minute walk you could get cabs from places like Szikvíz családi vállalkozás, Mogyorod, Szilasliget, Középhegy
- Schedule / book a taxi away from the circuit in advance. Do this a day or two before on any of the apps, then it should be ready and waiting for you when the day finishes. I’d suggest that it picks you up a 10 or 15 minute walk from the track to avoid the traffic.
Also bear in mind that because there are so many people at the track, phone signal to use the apps to find a cab can be patchy. So walking away from the circuit for at least 10 or 15 minutes will help that too.
Public Transport
If you plan on using public transport and are going to be in Budapest for 2 or more days, my first suggestion would be to purchase a Pest County pass. This can be done through the BudapestGO app.
The Pest County Pass costs 9450HUF, which is about 24 Euros, and will give you unlimited travel around Budapest and cover all of the transport you need to get to and from the circuit. There are a couple of things to note with this pass:
- It does not cover the train from the airport to Budapest
- It’s valid for the calendar month in which you purchase it (not a rolling month). So if you purchase it on the 30th day of the month it will only be valid for 1 day, then you’ll need a new one at the start of the next month. As long as the race weekend doesn’t span July in to August you should be ok.
Once you’ve got a pass, to get to the circuit using public transport from Budapest you first need to take the Metro to the Örs vezér tere station which is at the East end of the M2 (red) metro line.
Once you’ve got a pass, to get to the circuit using public transport from Budapest you first need to take the Metro to the Örs vezér tere station which is at the East end of the M2 (red) metro line.
From there you need to exit the Metro station, cross the junction and look for the Örs vezér tere H8 suburban HÉV railway line in the direction of Gödöllő on the other side of the road.
Once on the H8 train, you keep going until you get to the Kerepes station where you exit. That will be roughly a 35 minute journey on the train. Once you arrive at the Kerepes station there will be free shuttle buses provided by Volánbusz that will take you to Gate 3 of the Hungaroring.
You should allow around 90 minutes for the whole journey, depending on how far you have to travel on the Metro through the city.
Leaving the track at the end of the day is a different story. The biggest issue is the queues for the shuttle bus outside gate 3 – at peak times on Saturday and Sunday after the F1 has finished this can take up to 3 hours!
However, there is an additional option when getting on the Shuttle bus at the end of the day. Some of these go to the Gödöllő station instead, where there’s a larger range of trains back to Budapest or onwards to other destinations. But there will still be a queue for this bus.
The solution to the queuing for a bus is a simple one, as long as you’re happy to walk. Instead of waiting for a bus, walk for 30 minutes to either the Mogyoród or Szilasliget stations. Both of these are on the same H8 line (as the image above shows) and will take you back to Budapest. You might have to wait 15 minutes for a train, but you will avoid the long waits for a bus.
Here’s a few other tips if using public transport:
- The trains and shuttle buses are likely to be hot and without air conditioning. Pack plenty of water for the journey.
- If walking to / from the H8 stations rather than waiting for a bus, expect it to be very hot, so pack suncream and water and a hat.
- Trains from Gödöllő at the end of the day are usually nicer, cleaner and air conditioned.
- There’s a shop at the Örs vezér tere Metro HEV station, which is a good place to stock up on food and drink to take with you.
Budapest City Shuttle buses
There is an option to take a direct city shuttle bus from the centre of Budapest to the circuit.
This is run by www.cityshuttle.hu and collects from Heroes’ Square in the centre of Budapest, right next to the Hősök tere metro station on line M1.
From there, it’s a 30 minute drive to the circuit where the shuttle bus will drop you off outside gate 8.
The shuttle bus timings are as follows:
Budapest Heroes’ Square -> Hungaroring
- Friday & Saturday: 09:00 – 13:00
- Sunday: 08:00 – 13:00
Hungaroring -> Budapest Heroes’ Square
- From Friday to Sunday: From 16:00
Tickets cost 20 Euros per person each way and can be purchased in person when arriving at the pick-up points. The buses are airconditioned and this is an easy way in and out of the track for a few extra Euros.
