Vaughan to the Montreal Grand Prix: the Formula 1 weekend by chauffeured Sprinter

The race, and the weekend around it

The Canadian Grand Prix runs in June on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the track laid on the roads of Île Notre-Dame in the St. Lawrence — the island built for Expo 67 — and it is the biggest sporting weekend in the country: practice on Friday, qualifying on Saturday, the race on Sunday, a hundred thousand people on the island each day, and a city that closes Crescent Street, Peel Street and the Old Port for a festival that runs from Thursday to Monday. The hotels sell out a year ahead at prices that double, the island is reached by the metro, the bridges and the bicycle path but not by parking, and the group of Vaughan friends who go every year has learned the shape of it: a chauffeured Executive Sprinter from Woodbridge on Friday morning, a hotel booked the previous June, the Sprinter's drops at the Jean-Drapeau metro's Berri station or the Concorde Bridge's foot each morning, and the Monday drive home asleep. The Montreal post covers the city; this one covers the race.

Getting to the island

Île Notre-Dame has no public parking on race weekend; the circuit is reached by the Jean-Drapeau metro station on the yellow line from Berri-UQAM, by the Concorde Bridge from the Old Port on foot, and by the bicycle path from the Jacques-Cartier Bridge. A chauffeured group is dropped at the metro's downtown end or at the Concorde Bridge's Old Port foot — a fifteen-minute walk to the gates — at nine each morning and collected at the same point after the day's session, with the Sprinter in a downtown garage between; the drop is the difference between a group that is in the grandstand for the first practice and a group that spent the morning in the Jacques-Cartier Bridge's traffic.

The grandstands and the general admission

The circuit's grandstands sit on the hairpin, the Senna corner, the pit straight and the casino corner, with the three-day tickets sold from the previous autumn through the race's site; general admission is the grass and the fences along the back straight and the hairpin's approach, cheaper and, on race day, a standing crowd. A group of eight books a grandstand block together in the autumn and the Sprinter the same week, because the June weekend's vehicles are the first thing this site sells out.

The city's weekend

Crescent Street's four-day festival — the street closed, the show cars, the bars' patios full from noon — is the weekend's evenings, with Peel Street and Sainte-Catherine closed for the fan zones and the Old Port's Formula 1 village; the group's Sprinter drops at the hotel and the evenings are on foot, which is the arrangement the hourly page calls daily hire with the vehicle released in the evening. The Saturday night is the one that decides Sunday's condition.

The hotels, honestly

Montreal's hotels for the Grand Prix weekend are booked by the previous July at rates two and three times a normal June's, with three-night minimums; a group that decides in spring stays in Longueuil across the river or Laval to the north and the Sprinter's morning drive to the metro is twenty minutes — the travel desk holds whichever is left, and it is the part of the trip the group prices first.

The drive, and the Monday

The 407 and 401 east from Vaughan, Kingston's lunch, Cornwall, Autoroute 20 into the city — five and a half hours on the Friday morning with the group at the tables; the Monday's drive home is the same road with the group asleep from Cornwall, which is the reason the Sprinter and not three cars is the vehicle for a weekend of Crescent Street and eight hours of engines. The routing estimate's seven hours is the no-toll, no-stop version.

The trip, in shape

Thursday evening or Friday morning's drive; Friday's practice sessions and Crescent Street; Saturday's qualifying and the fan zones; Sunday's race with the drop at nine, the podium at four, and the Old Port's evening; Monday's drive home. Four days of daily hire, one number in the booking engine, split eight ways — a per-person figure that beats three cars' fuel and tolls, three downtown garages' race-weekend rates and three drivers who wanted the Saturday night too.

The vehicle

The Sprinter for a group of six to fourteen with the tables and the bay; a Luxury SUV for a family of four with a son who watches every race; a Premium Sedan for a couple with a hospitality suite's tickets and a downtown hotel. A party bus is not built for five hours of the 401 and a group that asks is steered to the Sprinter.

What the chauffeur replaces

The Jacques-Cartier Bridge on race morning; the downtown garages at race-weekend rates; the Saturday-night question of who is driving to the island; and the Monday's 401 after three days of the loudest weekend in the country. For a group of eight the daily hire is the cheapest thing about the trip, and the site says so plainly.

The other race weekends

Montreal's summer has the NASCAR weekend at the same circuit in August and the Trois-Rivières Grand Prix's street race an hour east the same month; a racing group's summer is two Sprinter weekends, and the Mosport (Canadian Tire Motorsport Park) weekends near Bowmanville, an hour from Vaughan, are the hourly day that the same group books in between.

The weekend, in order, for a group of eight

Friday at 7 a.m. from two Woodbridge addresses in the Sprinter: the 407 and 401, Kingston's coffee at 9:45, Cornwall, Autoroute 20, the Longueuil hotel by 12:45 — booked the previous July when the downtown ones were gone; the metro from Longueuil's station to Berri and the yellow line to Jean-Drapeau for the afternoon's practice sessions; Crescent Street's Friday night from the Sprinter's drop at the corner of Sainte-Catherine at eight, the collection at one. Saturday: the drop at the Concorde Bridge's Old Port foot at nine, the walk to the island, the qualifying at four from the Senna grandstand, the Old Port's F1 village after, the Sprinter at eight and the hotel. Sunday: the same drop at nine, the pre-race grid walk for the two with the passes, the race at two, the podium at four, the walk back, the Sprinter at 5:30 and a Crescent Street dinner. Monday: the Sprinter at nine, the 401 with the group asleep from Cornwall, Woodbridge by three. Four days of daily hire, one number in the booking engine, split eight ways.

The circuit, for the first-timer

The track is 4.36 kilometres of the island's roads around the rowing basin and the Casino de Montréal — the pit straight past the casino, the Senna corner's chicane, the back straight along the basin, the hairpin at the far end, and the Wall of Champions at the final chicane, which has ended more than one championship contender's race. The grandstands at the hairpin and the Senna corner see the most action; the pit straight's see the starts and the stops; general admission along the basin sees the cars at their fastest and the podium's celebration from a distance. The race's site has the map and the ticket tiers.

Costs, plainly

Four days of daily hire for eight is the site's largest June booking and it divides into a per-person figure that three cars' fuel and tolls, three downtown garages at race-weekend rates and three drivers who wanted Crescent Street too do not beat — and the hotel, not the vehicle, is the trip's real bill. A couple with hospitality tickets and a downtown suite books a Premium Sedan as a return pair and lets the metro do the island.

The Friday practice, and the paddock walk

Friday is the day the grandstands are half full and the group that arrives by noon has the circuit to itself: two practice sessions of an hour each, the teams' garages open along the pit straight for the ticket holders with the paddock passes, the drivers' parade on the Thursday evening in the Old Port for the group that drives up a day early, and the Crescent Street stage from six. A group of eight from Woodbridge that leaves at seven is at the circuit for the second session and at Crescent Street for the first band, with the Sprinter at the metro's downtown end and then at the hotel; the race's site has the weekend's schedule by the hour.

Getting the group around without the vehicle

The island is the one place the Sprinter cannot go, and the group's three days are built around that: the metro's yellow line from Berri-UQAM to Jean-Drapeau runs every few minutes and is the standard route from the downtown hotels; the Concorde Bridge from the Old Port is the walking route with the river beside it; the Sprinter meets the group at whichever end the day finishes. For a group in Longueuil or Laval the Sprinter drives to the metro's nearest station each morning and collects there each evening — twenty minutes each way — and the daily hire covers the four days with the vehicle released between the drops.

The family version

A father and two sons from Kleinburg do the weekend as a family of three in a Luxury SUV: Friday's drive, Saturday's qualifying from the hairpin grandstand, Sunday's race and the podium, Monday's drive home with the boys asleep — the same drops, a smaller vehicle, and the Old Port's Formula 1 village as the evening rather than Crescent Street. The Montreal post has the city's family hours for the Saturday morning.

Booking it

Book a daily hire from your Vaughan address for the four days with the hotel, the grandstand and the drop point; tell us the group size, the addresses in order and the Monday's departure, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before with the island's access on it.

Book the Grand Prix weekend