Before I visited Suzuka, I found reading people's experiences (mainly on reddit) to be helpful, so I thought I'd post my own thoughts from driving down this past weekend.

I came from Tokyo, driving to Suzuka and parking in one of their official lots, and I stayed at a small resort about 50 minutes by car away from the track. The race tickets, and parking ticket were bought from the official "mobilityland" website, and it was 14,000 yen for a parking pass for the weekend, and I paid I think about 9000 yen to get there, and 6500 yen on the way back in tolls. For two people it worked out to be cheaper then the trains (and more fun to drive it!). They had some cheaper parking options as well in an unpaved lot, but I get the feeling the official parking passes sell out super quick, so you should take what you can get. There was a lot of unofficial lots nearby selling day parking, but I think you'd have to arrive very early to use them since most of them were full by the time I strolled up to the official lots around 9-10am. Speaking of which, if you buy the official parking ticket, you get an exact assigned space to use for the whole weekend, so no roving up and down the lots looking for a space. Also some people were sleeping in their cars as well so that's an option if you want to save on a hotel..

Crowds (cars and people) were managed really well. I was dreading leaving the parking lot at the end of the race, but I got out before it was crowded at all, and was able to make a beeline for the highways.

About the stands, my tickets were in Q1, at the final corners closest to the track. Aside from seeing Logan's accident in qualifying they weren't the best seats. The monitor was absolutely worthless, it was so small and so far away that without binoculars you couldn't tell the position of anyone on the track, or what lap they were on. There was also a pole blocking the middle of the monitor as well which was very distracting. Washrooms were quite far from these stands as well, although underneath the neighboring Q2 stands there was a water bottle filling machine which was pretty nice. Speakers were playing only the Japanese audio, and they have a FM radio station with the same Japanese commentary. I had hoped to get live timings on my phone, but there was basically no internet due to the huge number of people.

If anyone has questions, please ask. Overall I had a great time, although after the exciting Singapore race prior to Suzuka, this was pretty boring by comparison. Max held the lead at the first corner, and he just extended the lead over the whole race. Seeing Perez get retired and then suddenly show up again was really weird/ confusing, also it was good to see Sainz fighting with the Mercs.

Kinda thought it was boring race. A few entertaining passes, but that was it.

On to Qatar in two weeks (Oct. 6-8)!

That was a pretty good race. The Ferrari boys definitely entertained today!

On to Singapore in two weeks!

Not as crazy as F2 Qualifying, at least. That's certainly worth a watch.

Looking forward to the race tomorrow. Will probably be the first race in awhile with no rain!

This is something I’ve thought about and I don’t think has gotten as much discussion as I figured it would. Who’s in line to take that second Mercedes seat if Lewis does decide to walk away?

I don’t think anyone in the junior program will go straight to Merc. Additionally, Red Bull are no gos in my opinion.

I think both Ferrari guys will do what they can to get out at this point. Slight lean to Leclerc because he does have his brilliant moments. I would have put money on Lando before Silverstone, but maybe he’s been convinced. I don’t think they’d take Alonso, Stroll isn’t going anywhere. I know Ocon used to be managed by Toto but I think he’s committed to Alpine. Gasly and Bottas haven’t been impressive enough since the start of 2022 to be in consideration, in my opinion. Ricciardo will need a hell of a rest of 2023 to be a contender. I highly doubt they’d go to Mick, could they potentially poach Albon from Williams and put Mick in his place? The story is Hulk was going to be their other driver way back when, has he done enough to be in the conversation?

My personal top three most likely is Leclerc, Albon, Norris. What do you think?

I’ve always enjoyed rally games but only recently decided to buy a wheel (just a used Logitech G29) and also decided to give F1 22 a shot. I feel like I’m okay-ish at DiRT Rally 2.0 and WRC 10 but atrocious at F1 22. How do I actually learn to be better instead of constantly making mistakes?