Ollie from the UK shares his experience and photos from his second live race, the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka
We’d been to one race weekend before (the 2023 Italian Grand Prix) and that just left us wanting more! Suzuka always had a special pull for me as I spent a year living in Japan, but the autumn slot wasn’t ideal due to the seemingly inevitable rain. The calendar changes removed that obstacle though, and a milestone birthday in mid-March seemed the ideal opportunity to tick the Japanese Grand Prix off the list.
Suzuka Tickets
As documented elsewhere, ticket prices are really reasonable. With the Thursday pit walk an option, we did think about just getting grandstand tickets but decided to push the boat out a bit with an F1 Experiences package. The panoramic views sold B2 for me, and F1 Experiences offered a Hero package in that stand. As well as the weekend tickets, we got a pit lane walk, guided track tour, plus photo with the drivers’ and constructors’ championship trophies (all on Thursday afternoon), as well as access to the Inside F1 event in the Champions Club on Friday night with guest speakers and free food and drink. Ticket purchase was easy and communications from F1 Experiences were really good. The tickets and credentials arrived two or three weeks before the race, and they also sent various tips and reminders by email in the run-up to the weekend.
Travel to Japan & Staying in Nagoya
The Grand Prix was the main reason for the trip, but we built other sightseeing time around it. We flew into Tokyo the weekend before the race (just in time for the unseasonable cold snap), but going to the track on Thursday meant we couldn’t check out the Tokyo Fan Festival, which started on Wednesday. We also made time to see Nagoya and Osaka after the race weekend.
We based ourselves in Nagoya for the race, and getting there from Tokyo is nice and easy. We pre-booked Shinkansen tickets using the online Smart-Ex service. Japanese trains are far more reliable, frequent and reasonably priced than UK trains, however, so you could easily just buy at the station on the day. In Nagoya, we saved a bit of money on accommodation by staying a short subway ride away from the main train station. We stayed near Fushimi station (1 stop from Nagoya), but Sakae was one stop further out and had more shops and restaurants. I would advise booking as early as you can. There are plenty of hotels to suit all budgets but understandably the best ones get booked up fast. Pretty much all of the hotels we looked at offered free cancellation right up until a day or two before arrival, so there’s often nothing to lose.
Getting to Suzuka Circuit
After extensive research into the travel options, we went for the 5-day Kintetsu rail pass for race weekend. It was good value at 4,900 JPY ($33.60 USD), especially as it covered getting to the circuit on Thursday as well as our onward journey to Osaka on Monday after the race. We took the Nagoya-Shiroko route every day, but didn’t go with the limited express (guaranteed seats were appealing, but journey time wasn’t much quicker than the standard express, and we liked the extra flexibility). Travel to the circuit actually got easier as the days went on…seats on the train were harder to come by on Thursday and Friday with people going to work, then the fact Red Bull and Ferrari were on the fan stage early on Saturday made those trains quite busy. Sunday wasn’t so bad, but we went early relative to the action at the track. We got to Shiroko about 9am on Thursday and 8am or so the rest of the weekend.
We used the shuttle bus every morning to get to the track from Shiroko station. When planning I couldn’t see anything about bus service on Thursday, but a week or so beforehand the Suzuka website published the first and last shuttle times for each day, including Thursday. The times were also posted at the bus stops, as well as announced at the track. The Thursday service (and to a lesser extent Friday) was very much scaled back compared to the rest of the weekend. We had to wait about 45 mins to get on a bus on Thursday, then the ride itself took over 30 mins. Friday was a bit better with a shorter wait and only a 20 min journey, but Saturday and Sunday were both smooth and involved minimal waits. On Thursday you had to pay before boarding, the other days we paid after arriving at the circuit.
Leaving the circuit was a bit of a different story. Our F1 experiences activities lasted all afternoon on Thursday, so getting a bus back wasn’t an issue. The last shuttle on Friday was at 6pm, which was an odd time given that drivers were appearing on the fan stage at 6.30pm! We did hear some horror stories about the queues leaving the circuit after FP2 though, so we were quite glad to have the Inside F1 event on Friday night, which finished about 8pm. Given the bus situation we were anticipating walking to Hiratacho station (also on the Kintetsu line) or Shiroko but in the end, F1 Experiences organized coaches to take guests back to Shiroko, which was warmly welcomed, especially given how cold it was on Friday night!
We didn’t bother with the shuttle on Saturday or Sunday and just walked to Shiroko, which took us about 45-50 mins at a quick walking pace so probably a lot quicker than the bus. The walking route took us past Suzuka Circuit Ino station, and the queues there were massive on both Saturday and Sunday, but we couldn’t tell how quickly they moved.
Although the long queues for shuttle buses in previous years have been pretty well documented, I hadn’t really seen anything about queues at Shiroko station itself. Our previous F1 trip to Monza involved a massive scrum at the station, so we wondered if it would be the same here. In the end the distance between station and circuit dispersed enough that there were no queues to get in the station and we always got on the first train. We’d left straight after quali on Saturday and got seats, but even after staying longer for the track walk on Sunday, the train was packed. A silver lining was that the whole Sky F1 team were also sharing our crammed carriage back to Nagoya (except Ted, who was on the platform but had the sense to book himself a limited express ticket), so even TV crews had to suffer!
If you buy the Kintetsu pass online, you get a QR code to scan at the ticket barriers. Unfortunately, only a few gates have this functionality – usually only one, and it operates both in and out. This caused a bit of a bottleneck at Shiroko especially, and was a bit of a pain if you queued for a normal gate only to realise that you couldn’t use it. Exiting Shiroko, the QR-enabled gate was the rightmost one so aim right as you try to leave.
If you have an iPhone, you can add a Japanese travel card (Suica, Pasmo, Icoca etc.) directly in the Wallet app. It makes train travel much simpler as you don’t need to worry about buying tickets (although be careful not to touch the card reader if you’re trying to scan a QR code), plus you can use it to pay for the circuit shuttle as well at kiosks and convenience stores if you want. Unfortunately non-Japanese Android phones don’t have that functionality, but you can still get physical cards at stations.
Food & Drink at Suzuka
The Japanese Grand Prix Travel Guide on f1destinations.com covers things really well and I was really grateful for all the info planning both of our F1 trips. The main thing we noticed was that every retailer we saw for the 2025 weekend took cards, with only one exception where the machine broke down briefly. It’s still a good idea to have cash as a backup (plus it is faster to pay cash), but it seems like it’s not as essential as it once was. There were no bag checks whatsoever until Sunday, and even then all they did was ask you to open your bag so they could peer in.
It was great not to feel ripped off for food and drink – soft drinks were 200 JPY ($1.36 USD) for a can or JPY 500 ($3.40 USD) for a 32oz whopper of a cup at specialist stalls (including Japan-exclusive Fanta Melon, which is incredible). Beer was 550 JPY ($3.75 USD) for a can (350 JPY for 0%) or 800 JPY ($5.45 USD) for draught at the Heineken bar under the main grandstand. You could also pay 1000 JPY ($6.80 USD) for a draught beer in a commemorative metal cup – there was no plastic at the circuit whatsoever, unlike the rest of Japan.
Food options averaged out at about 1000 JPY ($6.80 USD) for a main meal. Lunchtime queues were pretty long, but a top tip for anyone in B2 grandstand is that there’s a food kiosk that can only be accessed by ticket holders in that stand, which helped reduce peak time queues.
Merchandise
Suzuka was a lot lighter on merchandise than we expected. The main fan zone had shops for Ferrari, Red Bull/RB, McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin, but no other teams had their own so it was a case of trying the F1 shop in the fan zone or looking around the various small kiosks around the circuit. If you want any special Japanese GP stuff then you’re best off buying on Thursday or Friday before it sells out. Prices are as high as you’d expect, but Suzuka has a lot of its own merchandise shops selling decent stuff at more sensible prices.
Fan Zones at Suzuka
The main fan zone had the driver stage and merchandise outlets, as well as some sim racing. There was also a West Fan Zone in the GA area, which had the pit stop challenge and racing sims as well as the usual food and drink. The fan stage at Suzuka is a uniquely Japanese experience. Almost everyone sits down and it is a very polite affair. You may not get to see everyone – some drivers appeared on Friday after the last shuttle bus, and others were included in the Saturday night event in front of the grandstand. Other than the drivers speaking, everything else during the appearances was conducted in the Japanese language only.
Amex Benefits
Having an American Express card had several benefits. If you used it to pay for merch, there was a free gift while stocks lasted, plus they also gave out free radios to cardholders. You could tune them to 86.0 FM to get the English commentary, apparently it was only available in certain areas but the signal in B2 was perfect. There was also an Amex popup in the fan zone with activities and freebies, with the highlight being the chance to record your own driver-style intro that you could download and keep. T-poses aplenty!
Suzuka Circuit Motopia (Theme Park)
A weekend ticket gets you full access to the theme park rides from Thursday to Sunday. The queue for the ferris wheel on Thursday was actually quite long (about 30 mins), but that might have been because we went on it just after the public pit walk had finished. We went up again on Friday morning while the Porsche Carrera Cup practice session was on track and barely waited at all. The rides did get quite busy throughout the weekend, but Sunday morning wasn’t too bad and the ride we went on had the bonus of a covered queue to keep us out of the rain.
Public Pit Lane Walk, Free Friday & Post-Race Track Walk
The public pit lane walk on Thursday was really busy, with massive crowds around the Red Bull garage especially. You could see the cars being set up, but not a lot more. It was nice to get on the main straight though.
With most seats being unreserved on Friday, we took in the practice sessions from all over the track (when the grass wasn’t on fire of course). It was somewhat unfortunate that possibly the most excitement right in front of our reserved seats all weekend was Jack Doohan’s crash, at a time when we weren’t there! The view from B2 is as good as it looks online, we could see from the front row of the grid all the way through the esses.
Given how busy the Thursday pit walk had been (plus the fact we did another one with F1 Experiences), we left straight after quali on Saturday rather than staying for the night pit walk and Eve Festival. We stayed for the post-race track walk on Sunday, which opened up after the presentations. Only the East Course was open – you entered through the gate by grandstand A near Turn 1, then could walk round as far as the start of Dunlop before having to cut across towards the final corner. Happily though, the main straight was open, despite the information online saying that it would only be for V1/V2 grandstand ticket holders.
F1 Experiences
The bulk of the action with F1 Experiences’ fan packages happens on Thursday afternoon. We were surprised at the sheer number of people assembling at the meeting point for the pit lane/track tour action, and were a bit concerned it would be a repeat of the morning crowds. However, F1 Experiences staff organised the masses into three lines, with each starting on a different activity. Our group started with the trophy photo, then moved on to the track tour. The truck that took us around the track wasn’t overfull at all, allowing you to move around and get any views or pictures you wanted, and it probably went faster than expected – someone lost their hat (although it was returned). We had professional racing driver guides to give more detail and context, although I think many people ended up getting distracted due to it being ideal timing for driver spotting…many drivers had started their track walks/runs/cycles and as we went round we went past Isack Hadjar, Ayumu Iwasa, Kimi Antonelli (with Bono) and George Russell, as well as seeing the Haas drivers doing a TV piece at the start line.
There was a lot of activity in the pit lane when we got there, and in the end the only drivers we didn’t see across the afternoon were the Sauber guys, plus Max and Lewis. You could see into the garages (although again Red Bull was very popular) and any worries of it being too crowded were unfounded. We also had a front-row view of pit stop practice for Mercedes and Williams. I think there’s a degree of luck of the draw as to timing and what you see, but it worked out perfectly for us and was well worth doing.
Friday night was Inside F1, which was billed as having appearances from some F1 personnel. After a freezing cold start waiting outside after the sun went down, it was nice to get inside the warm Champions Club! The evening was great, lasting about 90 mins with plenty of complimentary drinks and small plates of tasty food being offered. We weren’t sure who to expect, but the guests were Ayao Komatsu, Simon Lazenby, Bernd Maylander and Otmar Szafnauer. We enjoyed hearing from them all, but Bernd Maylander in particular was very entertaining. View F1 Experiences packages for the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix here.
Final Thoughts
Would I do it again? Definitely. It’s a shame the race itself was a bit of a non-event, but everything else was great. The atmosphere is maybe more subdued than other races, but that’s part of the charm. I can speak Japanese and having someone in your party who knows at least some of the language is a bonus, but other people we saw that don’t speak Japanese seemed to get on OK. The new slot is perfect for visiting Japan as well, as the race takes place during prime cherry blossom season.
Learn More: 2026 Japanese Grand Prix Travel Guide
