Ahead of the 2025 Formula 1 season, Nicky Haldenby paired a trip to London for F1 75 Live at the O2 with a visit to the F1 Exhibition at the ExCeL.
Images: © Nicky Haldenby
On Tuesday July 13, 1976, the Royal Albert Hall in London was host to Grand Prix: Night Of The Stars. The show was headlined by Shirley Bassey and recent Eurovision winners The Brotherhood of Man, and was hosted by the likes of Patrick Moore and Bruce Forsyth.
Taking place just days before the 1976 British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch, the event was attended by leading F1 drivers of the 1970s, with Niki Lauda and James Hunt appearing in the midst of their dramatic and famous title battle, plus Jody Scheckter, Ronnie Peterson, Mario Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi.
Flash forward almost 50 years and Formula 1 was back in London to stage another star-studded show. This time, for the first time ever, all ten teams and 20 drivers gathered at London’s O2 Arena to unveil their new liveries for the 2025 season.
A Celebration of 75 Years
Celebrating the sport’s 75th anniversary, the 15,000 tickets made available to the public for F1 75 Live sold out within an hour. I was one of the many unlucky F1 fans who had been unable to secure tickets when they first went on sale in November 2024. However, I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time when a limited number of additional tickets were released by the O2 in early January.
Our seats were located in block 421, in the uppermost tier of the arena and close to the right hand side of the stage. For a normal arena event, the seats may have felt a little detached from the action. But such was the expansive nature of F1’s staging, with its huge moving video walls protruding almost from one end of the arena to the other, it felt like there were no bad seats in the house. Tickets were priced at a little over £80, which is around the average price that I would expect to pay for a two-hour live event in 2025.
As show time approached, we were shown videos from the red carpet outside where the drivers and other personalities were arriving. VIP guests – including many of F1’s World Champions – began arriving at their tables below us. Some people – like Finnish drivers with dyed bright blonde mullets, for example – were easier to spot than others.
A Show For The Fans
From the moment it was announced, F1 75 Live had its detractors. Of course, the people who disliked the idea will have found plenty to complain about. But this was always designed to be something a little bit different and fun, for the fans. It was never supposed to be taken too seriously – and from the off, it was clear that F1 was not treating the event particularly seriously.
Comedian Jack Whitehall, who compèred the evening, quipped just moments into the show: “You know your sport’s ridiculously minted when they book the O2 to show off cars that are the exact same colour as last season.” What he was saying wasn’t entirely untrue. Aside from a few surprises – like a white livery for Racing Bulls and an unexpected white stripe on the Ferrari engine cover – the liveries were largely what you would expect.
Perhaps it was just the bright lights of the arena, but the grid does look slightly more colourful this year than in 2024, particularly the Alpine, which seems to have a lot more paint on it this year than last.
The event got the right mix between celebrating the sport’s 75 year history and looking ahead to 2025. At points, with pre-recorded packages and musical performances, the event felt like Eurovision for cars. Each seven minute slot for each team’s unveiling felt unique, with various different approaches.
A Slick Operation
Fun fact: F1 75 Live was, in fact, not entirely live for those watching at home. The broadcast was around ten minutes behind real-time, allowing time to put right anything which may have gone wrong. As it turned out, the whole show was a very slick operation, with everything running as smoothly as you’d expect in such a logistically challenging sport.
I was impressed by the venue’s management and efficient queuing system, which got us into the venue in no time at all. The only queuing we did was to get to our actual seat. Doors were scheduled to open at 6:30pm but, with rehearsals running late, doors eventually opened at 7pm.
Everyone who attended received a momento from the evening as they took their seat – a lanyard, with a section that lit up, making the fans a part of the spectacle in the arena. There was other merchandise on offer, though much of it was relatively expensive, with hoodies and jackets priced at £125.
Having never been to the O2 before, I was surprised by just how big the venue formerly known as the Millennium Dome, actually is. Surrounded by an entire shopping outlet, complete with its own cinema and gaming centres, there were plenty of ways to pass the hours before the show.
Outside of the O2, the North Greenwich tube station had been taken over by Aston Martin and the green team’s mechanics (or at least people dressed as their mechanics) greeted F1 fans as they arrived. The atmosphere built throughout the day. Craig Slater of Sky Sports F1 recorded a news piece outside of the arena entrance, while ESPN interviewers were stopping F1 fans and asking for their thoughts on various motor racing topics.
I soon racked up the walking mileage, managing to walk almost 8 miles during the day. We took a walk around the outer perimeter of the venue alongside the waterfront, where you could see the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf. The route led us to the hotel next to the venue, where various supercars and chauffeur-driven cars were coming and going. A spot of good timing meant that we happened to see Fernando Alonso in the car park.
Visiting the F1 Exhibition at London’s ExCeL
F1 75 Live coincided with the final month of the Formula 1 Exhibition’s tenure at London’s ExCeL exhibition centre. Having wanted to visit since it first opened in Madrid in 2023, the day before the O2 show was the perfect opportunity to head to the first-ever official F1 exhibition.
After visiting the Silverstone Museum last year, I had expected the F1 Exhibition to feel similar – but it was a completely different experience. Set out over six rooms, there’s a 90-minute recommended visiting time but we spent three hours soaking up the history that was on offer within each room.
“Once Upon A Time In Formula 1”, the first room, featured a whistle-stop tour of 75 years of F1 history, from era-defining cars to career defining moments. Cars in the room include the famous “sharknose” Ferrari 156, with which Phil Hill won the 1961 World Championship, the iconic Lotus 72 in its black and gold livery and Mika Hakkinen’s late-90s title-winning McLaren.
Among the re-tellings of F1’s most notorious moments were lesser-known facts and insightful artefacts. Pieces like Bernie Ecclestone’s letter to Leonid Brezhnev on the proposal of a Grand Prix in Moscow and Silverstone’s expenditure list for the 1950 British Grand Prix (which totalled £20,000!) made for fascinating insights to the sport’s storied history.
The ‘Design Lab’ and the ‘Drivers and Duels’ rooms were fascinating and the collection of driver helmets and memorabilia was impressive. It surprised me to see how many different shades of yellow Ayrton Senna had used on his iconic helmet throughout the years!
Another focal point of the exhibition is the remains of Romain Grosjean’s Haas car from his horrific crash at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix. It is incredible to see how intact the monocoque is despite the shredded carbon fibre and fire-stained remnants surrounding the survival cell. Other cars – like one of Senna’s title-winning McLaren cars and the cars which Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen drove to success in 2018 and 2021 respectively – were also on display throughout.
The immersive Pit Wall room was the final stop in the exhibition and was the only room that fell a little flat. The five-minute light and sound show felt like it would have worked better as the first room and a taster of what was to come, rather than a finale to the experience.
As always with this kind of experience, it’s better to book earlier in the day. Our visiting slot was at 9:30am and there was no queue to get in. Being in the school holidays – and with plenty of F1 fans in the area thanks to the O2 show taking place the next day – it was pretty busy inside. We seemed to have missed the busiest period, as there was a large queue to get in by the time we left after midday.
Having arrived back in August 2024, the Formula 1 Exhibition is in London until March 2. After, it heads to Amsterdam, where it will open at the iconic De Kromhouthal on April 17. Concurrently, the exhibition will begin a tour of South America, opening in Buenos Aires in late March. Limited tickets remain available for the final weeks of the London show.
My trip to London, albeit a chilly one, was a really fun few days and the perfect warm up for the 2025 season. With just one week until pre-season testing begins, preparations are in full swing for the new year of racing. Just to prove that F1 truly is the sport that never sleeps, not even ten hours after the London event ended, Charles Leclerc was on track in Italy, debuting Ferrari’s new car!
