São Paulo Grand Prix

Brazil loves their F1! The country has the largest TV audience of any and they turn out in force for the Sao Paulo race.

The Interlagos track is dated and set in the middle of suburbia and as such, the track is quite compact and the facilities need a good makeover to be frank. One of the unique things about the pit straight is that at one end, it sits about 3 metres lower than pit lane. This means the drivers have to use stairs to get from their garages to the grid.

Like Mexico, one needs to be security conscious in Sao Paulo and staying in a good hotel is often paramount here. The best hotel for my money is the Palacio Tangara; I’ve stayed in few better and it’s where many of the top drivers stay. I’ve also stayed at the Hilton which was fine.

This is one of few tracks where the teams and drivers avoid wearing any team gear that might identify them as being involved in F1. This has come about after a number of incidents where F1 people were targerted in robberies and crimes. For that reason, we don’t affix our parking passes to our car, instead we just flash them as we enter the track.

I’m not really a fan of the city though. For me, Rio has much more to offer even though it can be even more dangerous than Sao Paulo.