Singapore F1 Grand Prix Travel Guide: Honest Tips from Our First Grand Prix Weekend

The Singapore F1 Grand Prix was the glue we built our 2.5-week itinerary around, making sure we had time to adjust to the local time zone ahead of the race weekend and ended our travel on a high note. We got into Formula 1 (F1) through Netflix’s Docuseries, Drive to Survive, and Singapore has been on our bucket list of races we’d like to visit. It can be overwhelming trying to figure out where to stay, how to get tickets, and what to pack. So let our learnings help guide you on how to navigate this action-packed weekend. Here’s our Singapore F1 travel guide on where to stay, how to get tickets, and what we’d do differently.

Fast Facts

Here’s what made the trip worth it and what we’d do differently next time. The city-state comes alive with racing decorations and F1 cars displayed throughout. It feels like a scavenger hunt, trying to find where your F1 team’s car display is. Singapore’s world-class MRT system was a huge influence on us choosing this race. Other races, such as Austin, are further out in the city and require a car, whether you’re taking a shuttle or driving. The last thing I want to do after activities is sit in a car with bumper-to-bumper traffic trying to get home. With this being a city race, there are multiple MRT lines and exists you can use for your entry points. This flexibility was key for us.

Singapore F1 Travel Guide: What to Know Before You Go

This is one of the more expensive race weekends on the calendar. Hotels will get pricey, so you should regularly check booking apps to see if you can find hotels for decent prices. We opted for a hotel in Orchard as it was a central location without completely breaking the bank. See below for more details on lodging.

Ticket purchases should be made at the official Grand Prix website. Early bird tickets will go on sale race weekend and the following weekend. If you missed your chance, you can take a look at the official resellers and browse their websites. Do not use other resale sites like StubHub that are not officially affiliated. You do not want to have paid for your lodging and airplane ticket to find out that you were sold fraudulent tickets. Be diligent about where you purchase from. We purchased our tickets through Pelago and Goo Tickets.

Team merchandise will be super expensive in Singapore. You should purchase it online and bring it with you to Singapore. Inside the track, they were selling caps for 100 SGD! I didn’t even dare to look at the pricing for t-shirts. You could go a bit further out at malls to try and purchase some merchandise. It’ll still be expensive, but not as ridiculous as the pricing inside the Grand Prix.

Bring a reusable water bottle! It gets so hot and humid in Singapore. There are water refill stations inside the track. We brought some electrolytes as well to help with hydration. You don’t realize how much you’re sweating until you walk into an air-conditioned building. The venue caps at 1L. Our 32-oz HydroFlask had no problem during security inspection.

Where to Eat in Singapore

There are so many restaurants in Singapore from hawkers to fine dining. I love going to different food centres and browsing the stalls that are available. It can feel overwhelming as well, all the options. Don’t fret – it won’t break the bank if it’s not a meal you like! You can always go to another stall.

Tip: When eating in public places, to save a spot, you need to leave a packet of tissue paper to ‘reserve your spot’ aka chopping. Don’t have any? You can easily buy some at 711. The tissue will save 1 spot and not necessarily a table. It’s common in Singapore to share a table with another group or family. If you’re looking to save 2 seats, then you will need 2 tissue packets to chop your seat. Restaurants will also give you packaged wet wipes, you can use those as well to chop your seat.

• Maxwell Food Centre: Famous hawker center that’s next to the Maxwell MRT. Tian Tian, famous for Hainan Chicken rice is also here. Due to its convenience, this place can get really busy with tourists during mealtimes.
• Hong Lim Market & Food Centre: Another hawker center that’s near Chinatown. This is a great place to eat meals before/during track activities due to its convenience.
• KOK Sen Restaurant: A local Singaporean restaurant if you’re looking to dine in a restaurant with air conditioning. This place can get busy since it’s small. If you’re a bigger party, I suggest making a reservation ahead of time.
• G² Dessert贵姐甜品: Nearby KOK Sen Restaurant. This place serves delicious shave ice with fresh fruits. They also serve durian dessert. It’s not as punchy, but the durian essence is still there. It’s a little more gentle way of trying out durian. This place is very popular and can have a queue. There’s a sign stating the max duration is about an hour. I’m not sure if it’s enforced, but they do turn tables quickly.
• Ion Orchard Food Court: We ate here for lunch on the first day. It’s in the same stop as the Orchard MRT, so it’s super convenient. The food court will be a little bit more expensive than a hawker, but you still get all the delicious variety. Also, these stalls will accept credit cards. The hawkers may accept credit cards, but typically prefer cash.

Where to Stay (and Why it Worked for Us)

• 🏨 Our Stay: Orchard Rendezvous Hotel, Singapore
• Why We Picked It: Close to the Orchard MRT station and a central location
• Would We Stay Again? Yes, in a heartbeat. Mainly due to our interaction with the hotel manager.

It’s key to find hotels near MRT stations to minimize the time it’ll take you to get to and from the MRT Station. Staying near the grand prix, like around Clarke Quay area, will be exponentially expensive. Not to mention the crowds around the area. We suggest staying in the Orchard area. It’s about 30 minutes away from the track and is far enough that it won’t break the bank, and you have lots of lodging options. Another area we looked at was by the Lavender MRT exit around the Kallang area. I preferred Orchard as it’s a bit more central and you could easily switch lines if needed.

I’ll go into more detail about the hotel saga below in What We’d Do Differently section. Honestly, the hotel didn’t have to honor our pricing and could’ve charged us way more. We are extremely grateful to the manager for helping us out. We stayed at Orchard Rendezvous Hotel, Singapore, and everything was amazing. The hotel was extremely clean and held our luggage for us on our last day in Singapore. Their breakfast had a good variety of Asian and Western cuisine. The hotel was ~10 minutes from the Orchard MRT and just so convenient when we were looking for food. 10/10 – would return here again.

Tip: The hotel manager mentioned that this is common with Agoda (it’s my second experience of this happening with them) and suggested we use trip.com for future bookings if we’re not booking directly. He claimed Trip.com is more reliable, but we cannot confirm his statement.

Day 1: Settling In and Friday Track Activities

If you were like us, you probably landed at Changi that morning/afternoon and are scrambling to get ready to leave for the Friday track activities. The Singapore Grand Prix has an app that breaks down the activities planned for the day, their timing, and the zone. We suggest you review the schedule ahead of time and favoriting which activities you’re interested in. The app will provide notification reminders, if you permit, before those activities start to help to manage your time. Since this is a night race, the gates will open later in the afternoon (it was 1:45 pm in 2025) with some activities starting as soon as the gates open (e.g., Porsche cup), but the main F1 activities will start later in the day.

Download the track map ahead of time as well. Depending on your ticket, you’ll be permitted to enter at certain gates. The track map will show the gates along with the MRT entrances nearby and their line, making planning a lot easier. You’ll also see signs when you’re exiting the MRT station on how to reach specific gates. There’ll be police officers as well to help with the crowd control. Don’t panic and continue moving.

Food inside the venue will be expensive, and so we suggest you eat outside of the track to save money. Each time you enter will require a bag check. Honestly, I was afraid that this would take a long time, but it took around 20 minutes max for me. Reid and I brought our 32-oz HydroFlask inside the venue, and we did not get flagged. We recommend bringing this as well. Singapore is extremely humid, and hydration is key. There are hydration stations scattered throughout the track, usually around the bathrooms.

Throughout the evening, they’ll also have concerts around the various zones. Typically, Friday is more K-pop focused at the Padang Stage. The Padang stage will be in Zone 4, and you’ll be getting off at the Raffles Place exit. The closest trackside entrance is Gate 3A and 3B. The line may look really intimidating, but we found it to move pretty fast.

Tip: Restaurants do not stay open late around Orchard. You’ll see some 711s or food stalls on the street serving some food. We picked up some ramen at a supermarket on our way back and had that as late late-night snack.

Day 2 – Morning Exploration and Saturday Track Activities

Looking at the Saturday schedule, we knew we wanted to catch the Third Free Practice session at 5:30 pm. That gave us the morning and afternoon to explore Singapore. When you hear Singapore, the first few things that come to your mind are food and Gardens by the Bay. We decided to go down by the race track to see the Merlion statue. I was afraid it’d be closed down due to the track, but fortunately it wasn’t. The area was super busy and extremely sunny. After visiting the Merlion statue, you can walk over to the Hong Lim Market & Food Center, a hawker center near Chinatown. We loved the architecture of the buildings around this area. After lunch, we recommend stopping at G² Dessert贵姐甜品 for dessert. Their shave ice is extremely light, and the fruits are so fresh. The perfect way to end lunch with some sweet cold relief. The queue can be long here, but table turnover isn’t too bad.

This year was just the F1 and F1 academy race. 2026 will be a sprint race, and so day 2 will be a little different. I assume the track activities will start a little earlier to accommodate the sprint race before qualifying. It was definitely busier getting to the track on day 2 compared to day 1. Fortunately, we got seats and so we didn’t have to spend time roaming around the general admission viewing stands for room.

It was so hot on Saturday that I never really had an appetite for dinner. Seeing how long the lines were to enter, we decided not to leave for food outside the venue. I debated going to a food stand inside, but with the wet grass and the number of people, I didn’t want to wait. Another key tip, it rains often in Singapore, and so, we recommend wearing shoes that you don’t mind getting dirty. We saw people wearing ponchos, but with the humidity, I thought it would’ve been even more uncomfortable than being a little wet.

After qualifying, the Foo Fighters were performing at the Padang Stage. We were in the main area for a few songs, but Reid felt the sound was actually better when we were farther away. After a few songs, we tried to leave the venue, and it was definitely a mistake. There was a large number of people trying to go, and it was a complete standstill for about 10 minutes. If you’re not interested in the main artist, we recommend leaving right after qualifying or waiting a little bit for the crowd to die down.

Day 3 – Morning Exploration and Sunday Track Activities

Similar to day 2, you could spend your morning exploring other parts of Singapore or going shopping. I opted to go shopping, specifically at Donki and Uniqlo, to pick up a few items that I couldn’t get back at home in the US. Uniqlo had a Singapore-exclusive t-shirt with Mickey that was too cute to pass up. I also embroidered the sling bag that everyone has and a t-shirt for Reid. The Uniqlo at Grand Orchard was a few stories tall, with the third floor having an area dedicated to personalizing items. They had a book with different items that they could embroider. You’ll work with the sales associate to detail the items in the ticket, and you’ll pay for the charges up front. Depending on what you want embroidered, it could be a same-day pickup or the next day. Fortunately, I went there early enough so I could pick up the items before the race. The bag I brought on Friday and Saturday was starting to feel heavy, and I wanted something a little lighter. The Uniqlo sling bag was perfect in that it fit everything I needed without feeling so heavy.

Race day will be the busiest of the race weekend. We suggest giving yourself an hour to get to the race track and through security. Upon exiting at Raffles Place MRT, it was a complete standstill at certain parts. Fortunately, I gave us 90 minutes from leaving our hotel to getting to our seats. The race atmosphere was fun as you’re surrounded by other fans who are having very similar reactions to you. Since we were at a straight, there wasn’t a ton of action, but the TV was in front of us, and so we had an idea of when to anticipate the cars coming to us and keep up with the race activities.

Elton John was our final artist at the Padang Stage, and I tried my best to get to the stage to get a glimpse of the legend. Watching him perform his songs on stage made me sad as I wished that was a moment I could share with my dad. Unfortunately, he passed earlier this year, so I’ll never get a chance to send him the videos and tell him my experience of seeing him perform his classics. After Saturday night’s attempt to exit, we decided to leave towards the end of Elton John’s set, but not at the very end. We wanted to miss a bit of the traffic, and honestly, it’s been an exhausting weekend. Fatigue definitely hit me hard at 11 pm. It was definitely the right move because it was a breeze trying to leave compared to the other nights.

Day 4 – Final Exploration and Shopping Before Departure

On our last day, we went to Gardens by the Bay so Reid could see this beautiful spot. If we had more time, I would’ve gotten us tickets for the Flower Dome exhibit. It was completely breathtaking the first time I went, and I would love to go back. There were a lot of decorations related to the Mid-Autumn Festival around the area. At night, there’s a light show here with music. Definitely a must-see if timing works out for you.

Our last food stop was at Maxwell Food Centre. I love Hainanese Chicken and had to have that as my last meal. We chose Maxwell Food Centre as there’s an MRT stop right around the corner, making it super easy to get there. Tian Tian was closed for the day, but several food stalls served Hainanese Chicken! We also got a delicious sugar cane juice to help cool down with the humidity.

Similar to Europe, tax refunds in Singapore must be claimed before you go through security. The officials will want your arrival card, receipts, and to see what you purchased, so don’t check in anything yet. This will need to be your first stop when you arrive at the airport. The process is fairly straightforward. It took about 5 minutes in total from entering my info at the booth to showing the customs officer my passport and receipts.

What We’d Change Next Time

If I could redo this trip, I would’ve arrived in Singapore a day earlier so that we wouldn’t be rushing to get to our hotel and to the track. Unfortunately, we booked our hotel through Agoda, which told us our reservation was confirmed. However, our hotel wasn’t able to find our reservation and said the third-party booker Agoda used had told the hotel to cancel our reservation due to a pricing error. Agoda wasn’t helpful at all, and we were fortunate enough to have the hotel manager agree to honor our rate if we booked the room directly with them. (They had blocked off some rooms for the weekend, so they weren’t completely booked!) All of this cost us the Driver’s Fan Forum, and we missed part of Free Practice 1. If we had gotten to Singapore a day earlier, it would’ve been less stressful, and we could’ve gotten this sorted out without compromising the track activities we planned to attend.

I would have also mixed and matched our F1 weekend tickets. We originally got 3-day passes at the Padang Grandstand since we got our tickets a little bit later, and availability was a bit more limited. The Padang Grandstand only got us access to Zone 4. If you wanted to see the Fan Forum to see other parts of the track, they were either in Zone 1 or 2. A Zone 4 pass doesn’t get you into the other zones. I ended up buying a Premier Walkabout pass for Friday in hopes of seeing the Drivers Fan Forum, but that didn’t work out. The great thing about the premier walkabout is that you can explore the whole track and watch from different views. Next time, I probably would get a Premier Walkabout pass for Friday and Saturday for the flexibility and grab actual grandstand seats for Sunday. The viewing stands for the Premier Walkabout don’t allow you to sit, and so standing for an hour can get tiring.

If you’re planning your first F1 trip, Singapore’s night race is the one to start with. The city is efficient, walkable, and endlessly fun between track sessions.

👉 Next up: Our Lombok and Komodo Island travel guide — the ocean half of this trip, where we swapped crowds for coral reefs.