I sat in grandstand GC03 at the new Madring circuit for the Spanish Grand Prix weekend in Madrid.
I’ve put this review together based on my experience in this stand at the F1 weekend, and I’ve included a video showing views from different seats, my tips on choosing the best seats, a full seating chart and information on how I bought my tickets cheap for the F1 race weekend in Madrid.
GC03 grandstand location
The GC03 grandstand is on the left hand side (outside) of the circuit at the long sweeping corner of Turn 4. It’ directly adjacent to grandstand GC04 which is to its left.
It’s very close to the edge of the track so you do get a real sense of noise and speed from the F1 and even louder F2 cars.
But you’re unlikely to see any overtaking here even though the cars start slowing down for the Turn 5 chicane as it’s a narrow part of the track where it’s hard to overtake (like everywhere on this circuit really).
Zone
This grandstand is located in the Barrio Fan Zone which is one of the smallest fan zones at the track. And sadly at the race I went to they didn’t let you move between different zones meaning you were limited to just what was in this zone, and there wasn’t much. Hopefully they’ll change that in the future
This grandstand is easily accessed via gate C2, but don’t make the mistake I did which was to get off the Metro at the Feria de Madrid station. When I did that, the security wouldn’t let me enter via gate C1, so instead I had to walk about 40 minutes around the outside of the circuit, on the streets, to get to gate C2.
The best way to get to C2 would be to use the Mar de Cristal metro station instead which is around 20 minutes walk.
GC03 is part of the Zone C (also called Alta velocidad) Bronze stands, and is shown as number 4A on the map on the Madring site, also called Curva 4a Bronze.
Grandstand tickets - Madring F1
I bought my tickets around 1 week before the race using ViaGoGo. I bought a weekend ticket for about half the official price, and saved a few hundred Euros. And for even cheaper options, on ViaGoGo you can get single-day tickets which cost less and allow you to try different grandstands (and fan zones) on different days if you wanted some variety.
If tickets appear sold out elsewhere, ViaGoGo is the best option. They’ll have tickets for sale right up until the beginning of the Sunday on the GP weekend. I used ViaGoGo for tickets for this F1 trip, and I’ve also used them on my other recent visits to Grand Prix such as the Canadian and British F1 races. I’ll happily use them again next time.
Grandstand details
TV Screens
There’s one large TV screen visible from this stand, on the other side of the track on top of a hill. The further left you sit in this grandstand the easier it is to see – from the far right hand side of the stand it’s quite difficult.
Seats
The seats are plastic chairs.
Cover
This grandstand has no cover and no shade, so you’re exposed to the hot Madrid sunshine all day long. In the heat of the day the sun got too much, so me and pretty much everyone else left the stand between the F1 sessions to seek shade in the fan zone.
This stand faces East, so you have the son right on your face in the morning and it moves around behind you later in the day.
Grandstand GC03 seating chart
Below is the seating chart for Grandstand GC03 at the Madring Formula 1 circuit.
The grandstand is 15 rows high, with Row 1 lowest down at the front and Row 15 highest up at the back.
Seat numbers increase from 1 as you move from left to right, if you were standing on the circuit looking up at the grandstand.
View
On the track map below I’ve highlighted the parts of the circuit you can see from here in green:
Your view from this stand is mainly of the cars going around Turn 4 in front of you, where they start to brake hard and slow down for the tight chicane of Turn 5. As you look to your left and right it’s hard to see much of the track because the safety fence blocks your vision quite a lot.
When you’re in the higher rows further to the left in the stand you get to catch a glimpse of Turn 5, but it’s hard to see much of that part.
In the video below I’ve filmed the view from this stand from a number of different seats:
Seat 4 Row 9
Seat 11 Row 1
Seat 42 Row 10
Seat 72 Row 15
Best seats
Ideall I’d want to be as high up as possible to get a better view over the safety fencing, and as far to the left as I could to have a better view of the screen and of the braking zone / entry to Turn 5. So higher rows and the highest seat numbers possible.
