“This isn’t System 1 Fyre Fest,” Alexandra Zigrang assures by the use of enjoyable.
Solely a 12 months in, her Barcelona-based trackside journey agency, Off to the Races, has been faraway from a failure. In distinction to the infamous music competitors that promised luxurious thousand-dollar villas solely to ship emergency tents and cheese sandwiches as a substitute. The company affords female vacationers what it describes as a “premium weekend the place the race method has been engineered for a seamless experience,” with each little factor from VIP hospitality tickets to a glam room inside the luxurious resort, full with make-up artists and hair stylists. If that doesn’t sound like what you consider an F1 race weekend journey to be, that’s the aim; Off to the Races creates an space for System 1’s rising viewers of women by catering to their mannequin of fandom — and by turning their off-track experience proper right into a “Journey + Leisure” unfold.
It’s like a motor oil-stained bachelorette social gathering pairing on-track movement with Michelin star meals.
Image by: Gael Strachan
Off to the Races has flown eager female followers in from 5 worldwide places, with most hailing from the States, boasting a demographic make-up that almost matches System 1’s frequent trendy female fan: 30-something and American, like Sara Lett, a 38-year-old tech marketer from Atlanta who joined Off to the Races in June for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Lett started watching “Drive to Survive” in 2023 at a coworker’s insistence. No matter witnessing the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” twice whereas rising up in Indianapolis, she certainly not developed the gearhead itch. Then she heard the Netflix sequence’ opening line: “I’m Daniel Ricciardo, and I’m a automotive mechanic.”
“I was like, ‘purchased!’” Lett remembers, a smile spreading all through every cheeks.
As quickly as she heard info of Ricciardo’s future seat uncertainty and Lewis Hamilton’s swap from Mercedes to Ferrari, Lett knew she wished to see every drivers sprint earlier at 200 miles per hour, leaving bits of rubber of their wake as a tangible lasting impression.
Lett deemed her dream of ending up trackside “daunting” all through her preliminary ticket evaluation rabbit hole, nevertheless then she found Off to the Races whereas scrolling on Instagram — the place the company meets terminally on-line female racing followers on their very personal turf.
Trip spot System 1
Zigrang chooses places based mostly totally on 4 requirements: funds, logistics, cultural experiences, and, in any case, good meals. Belgium’s legendary Spa monitor poses logistical points, tucked inside the countryside 90 miles from Brussels, and Monaco acquired’t be on Off to the Race’s calendar until Zigrang “personally owns a yacht.”
When she first toyed with the idea of using her earlier VIP administration experience inside the worldwide paintings world to launch a System 1 journey planning enterprise, Zigrang found that the sport’s journey suppliers had been nearly all UK-based and organized by males.
“They really lacked an fascinating standpoint. Logistically, they obtained you there, you acquire a resort and you acquire a ticket and probably transportation, but it surely certainly wasn’t trendy. System 1, though it is dirty and fast and crazy, it’s moreover truly engaging,” Zigrang talked about. “I considered the entire points I like to do after I journey: eat relatively nicely, truly get to know city, together with having that good experience on the monitor.”
For instance: System 1 affords ticket packages by the use of F1 Experiences with selections ranging from a grandstand ticket, resort and transportation bundle to three-day VIP storage passes. On the upcoming Mexican Grand Prix, the latter carries a $25,000 ticket with out lodging. On the 2025 British Grand Prix, an lodging, transportation and grandstand ticket bundle deal begins at just under $3,500 for 3 nights.
The Mexican Grand Prix marked the final word Off to the Races journey of the 2024 F1 season, following visits to the Spanish and Dutch Grands Prix earlier this 12 months. The voyage to Mexico’s capital metropolis included a four-night preserve at an space resort and a three-day grandstand cross with ensures of podium ceremony views — for about €4,000 per particular person. Aúna, a Meals and Journey Best New Mexican Restaurant, and Contramar, a Michelin Info eatery, are booked a 12 months upfront for post-track day meals. Morning yoga and a tour of the Museo Frida Kahlo provide a second of quiet sooner than the System 1 engines come to life, and a fleet of Mercedes sprinter vans-turned-party buses convey the group to and from the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
For 2025, Miami, Barcelona, and Zandvoort already preserve a spot on Off to the Races’ journey itinerary, and Zigrang hopes in order so as to add Australia, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore eventually. Subsequent season, a “sprint sequence,” offering three- to four-day itineraries between select double-headers, is on the horizon. The 2025 Spanish Grand Prix bundle deal, which incorporates a associated itinerary plus trackside VIP hospitality, costs €5,000 per particular person — though vacationers share a room.
Nevertheless sharing a room isn’t a dealbreaker. And for only a bit extra cash, the following journey permits followers like Lett in on the sport’s best-kept secret: the best way it feels to be a trackside VIP for a day. “We’re in hospitality, there’s transportation to and from, then a tour of the Sagrada Familia and a bop spherical to the fan zone,” Lett gushed. “All the best way during which to a Michelin star dinner and a welcome social gathering with cool influencers. It just so occurred that night that Pink Bull was on the an identical rooftop.”
No matter brushing shoulders with workforce sponsors and internet celebrities, Lett nonetheless can’t pretty shake basically essentially the most thrilling part of all of it: listening to the rumble of 20 engines turning over.
“You truly get goosebumps,” Lett talked about. “Like, oh my gosh, that’s precise. That’s occurring, and I’m listening to it. You might be about to see it in precise life. This is not merely on my TV anymore.”
“Do you even know what DRS means?”
Between 2017 and 2022, female fandom for F1 elevated by 8 p.c, in step with System 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali. Swelling north of 40 p.c of the sport’s full viewers, female followers did what they do most interesting: carved out an online based mostly neighborhood to bond by the use of TikTok edits, fan-made merchandise, and the swap of nonjudgmental race info. Nevertheless that wasn’t mirrored inside the keep audiences sweeping the grandstands on the races.
“Most of the girls that had been in attendance had been there with a affiliate or they’d been with family members,” Zigrang talked about. “I felt that was so disconnected from what I was seeing on-line, the place youthful girls, significantly on social media, had been pushing the sport forward in fascinating strategies. You weren’t seeing that translate into attendance within the an identical means that you just had seen males arrange themselves historically.”
And whereas ticket prices and logistics deter female followers from attending grands prix, exclusivity and safety issues present their very personal drawbacks as properly. On the 2022 Austrian and Dutch Grands Prix, female followers reported being harassed inside the grandstands. The FIA raised the problem with circuit promoters and security.
Furthermore, girls who watch the sport sometimes talk of attending to justify their curiosity whereas fielding questions like “Do you even know what DRS means?” from incredulous male F1 followers. With solely 20 driver names to review and an abundance of on-line crash packages, entry into the “greater echelon of motorsport” seems low stakes. However, everyone from casual female spectators to self-proclaimed fangirls has been met with backlash.
Image by: Onno Zonneveld
Off to the Races affords an inclusive reply. “A great deal of these girls don’t, day-to-day, have people to talk to about this fandom with,” Zigrang talked about. And can be found the Monday after race day, when the wining and consuming has concluded and the final word automotive has crossed the checkered flag, Off to the Races’ attendees fly once more to their respective corners of the globe — and the friendships solid from the epic all-female getaway acquired’t cease.
“We have an Instagram chat that is ongoing every totally different day, if not on day by day foundation, the place we’re chatting about System 1,” Lett talked about.
“Individuals are merely excited to have the flexibility to go profit from the game that they love and have a gaggle to do it with,” Zigrang talked about. “For plenty of ladies, they’re like, ‘I might need certainly not accomplished this on my own.’”
