The Race Weekend
This was my first ever Formula One race I attended in person since getting into the sport mid-season last year.
It was a wonderfully overwhemling and exhausting weekend, I was rather sick but it was very very worth the pain and stress it caused me.
This was special for me in a lot of ways, the trip was just me and my mother, also a huge F1 fan (thanks to me!), we haven't travled toghether since I was 9 or 10 so it was wonderful to do that again and really connect. This was also only ever my second time in Europe, the first being Christmas last year to see family in Sicily. (I'm up to 7 countries visted now!!)
Getting to Belgium was an experience... I felt close to throwing up the whole plane ride from Boston and boy are Belgian roads bumpy.
The place we stayed was quite nice, a b&b about half an hour from the track. On that, getting to the track was much easier than expected, the traffic wasn’t horrible and despite being physically unwell the walking wasn’t horrible (we did about 11 miles over the weekend), even walking from La Source up to Bruxelles didn't kill me!
First hearing the F2 cars as we walked up to the track was beautiful and made me realize what I was actually coming to see.
Anyway, on Saturday we sat in the grandstands right before Bruxelles and watched the F2 sprint race and qualifying. I can't really explain how amazing the feeling of first walking in and seeing all the fans was, it made me quite happy to see everyone else happy.
I was still getting used to photographing cars so my photos from then weren't great. The historic demo afterwards though, I managed a few ok ones.
On Sunday we sat up at the top of Eau Rouge and wow was it worth it, beautiful views of the track and surrounding forest, great spot for photos and the atmosphere of the others in the crowd was great! The DJ was a little overly enthusiastic for 11 in the morning but the effort will be appreciated.
The first thing we caught was the second half of the Formula 2 feature race, was very happy about Rafa winning and was super cool to see him racing! (I'm convinced he's going to Haas) Next up was the Porsche Supercup which was SO loud it hurt my ears more than anything else that weekend. I don't really know anything about that series but it was a fun one to watch and I loved the drama that was going on.
After that there was another run of the historical cars which I got some much better photos of!
The race itself was awesome!! I was dissapointed George crashed so early (I don't even have a picture of him) but seeing Kimi get back to winning was so refreshing.
The Max fans there were insane, very passionate people! All the fan interviews at his grandstand were funny, they had them play that one song as well. Lewis fans were also quite passionate, literally every single time he came by, for quali, formation and the race everyone was cheering.
What people say about the weather there is correct, on Saturday it rained a little and on Sunday it was so cold in the morning I had to buy a hoodie but then got warm enough that my camera was hot to the touch.
The view from Eau Rouge was absolutely perfect for photos, I'm telling you if your doing something like F1 you gotta spend the money and make the experience perfect.
Race Review
I must admit, I wasn’t very focused on the action or story of the race, I was sick, full of adrenaline and the commentary was in Flemish so I hardly registered it.
From highlights I watched afterwards I would call the 2026 Belgian Grand Prix a 8.5/10 if I'm not biased and a 10/10 if I am.
Thank you for reading.