{"id":106902,"date":"2025-08-30T14:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T14:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/106902\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T14:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T14:50:07","slug":"why-you-cant-drive-your-car-to-formula-1s-dutch-grand-prix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/106902\/","title":{"rendered":"Why you can’t drive your car to Formula 1’s Dutch Grand Prix"},"content":{"rendered":"

ZANDVOORT, Netherlands (AP) \u2014 It\u2019s the Formula 1<\/a> race where cars are banned, at least for spectators.<\/p>\n

Organizers of the Dutch Grand Prix<\/a> pride themselves on requiring almost all of the 110,000 fans expected each day of this race weekend to arrive by public transport or bicycle.<\/p>\n

Where other F1 races devote acres of space to spectators\u2019 cars \u2014 the Miami Grand Prix offers 29 different parking lots around the Hard Rock Stadium \u2014 in the Netherlands, they converted a parking lot to fit more bikes.<\/p>\n

People from outside the Netherlands \u201clook at you as if you\u2019re crazy\u201d when they hear the race has storage space for 45,000 bikes, Dutch Grand Prix mobility manager Roy Hirs told The Associated Press. \u201cBut here they see what we are able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the Dutch Grand Prix returned in 2021 after a 36-year absence, it was buoyed by passionate fan support for Max Verstappen<\/a>, but organizers had a challenge to fit everyone in. There are two roads into town, a nearby national park, and not enough parking lots, Hirs said, so \u201ctransporting 110,000 people by car is never going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Years of planning created a system where only a small number of vehicles can enter the seaside town of Zandvoort during the race weekend.<\/p>\n

Thousands of fans wearing orange to support Dutch champion Verstappen cycle in and leave their bikes at sites bearing the names of race tracks like Monza and Suzuka. There are buses from nearby campsites and trains running every five minutes from Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

The few exemptions are mostly for circuit and team vehicles, fans with disabilities and local residents, Hirs said, adding the Grand Prix means Zandvoort\u2019s 17,000 inhabitants find their roads are less crowded than on a typical summer weekend.<\/p>\n

The Dutch Grand Prix is leaving the F1 calendar<\/a> after next year but its legacy could live on.<\/p>\n

Hirs said organizers of other F1 races and large-scale events have visited to see how its car-free approach to auto racing works.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it starts with talking about it and then the adoption will come in the end,\u201d he said, \u201cbut it takes time.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP auto racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ZANDVOORT, Netherlands (AP) \u2014 It\u2019s the Formula 1 race where cars are banned, at least for spectators. Organizers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,3166,76721,6045,17881,784,817,813,835,76723,816,825,16255,76722,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-106902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-auto-racing","11":"tag-automobile-racing","12":"tag-climate","13":"tag-climate-and-environment","14":"tag-cycling","15":"tag-f1","16":"tag-formula-1","17":"tag-formula-one","18":"tag-formula-one-racing","19":"tag-formula1","20":"tag-max-verstappen","21":"tag-netherlands","22":"tag-roy-hirs","23":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}