I like to say that I have a special sense to find all the F1 related places in any city, but that is only partly true. Whenever I find a specific place that interests me I put a star on it on Google Maps, so whenever I’m nearby I can remember it. My other secret is that I always ask my Internet friend, ChatGPT, what I can see in or around the place I’m visiting. It has never failed me (sometimes it invents non-existing places, because as it turns out, it is a bigger people pleaser than I am).
So, this was also how I learned about the Technical Museum in Brno. It was a trip purely with the purpose to visit a friend, but I had some free time while he worked, so I needed something to occupy myself. This museum is a bit dusty, to be honest and I enjoyed it, but I would have enjoyed it 10 times better, if the descriptions also existed in English, especially that the Czech Republic did have some car factories, and I did want to learn more about them.
There was also a room about the Masaryk Circuit, which I planned to visit on the second day, but that wasn’t in English either. I did some previous research, so I was not completely in the dark when I arrive. I knew that the circuit is similar to Spa or the Nurburgring in a sense that they all used to be a lot longer (and quite dangerous as well), but at some point they started to get shorter until they reached their current length. Brno never hosted F1 races, but in the 30s, the Czeckoslovakian Grands Prix were held here.
The museum is also a mixture of a lot of random things, like optics, the enigma machine (which made me want to rewatch The Imitation Game), some blacksmith tools from the middle ages, a lot of old cars and motorbikes and some other things.
At the beginning, I admitted that my F1 finding sense can partly be attributed to ChatGPT, but the other part – well, that is truly my spidey sense. So in this museum, there was also a temporary exhibition dedicated to Ferrari model cars. Again, I didn’t understand much, as my Czech is not really the best (existent at all, to be honest), so what I could gather was that some person really likes Ferrari and he built a lot of different models by hand. It was a big room full of red model cars, half a meter long from different eras. I really enjoyed it, and I was really sorry that it was all in Czech.
The second day, my friend agreed to visit the Masaryk Circuit with me. During the off season, it is free to visit and walk around (including the pitlane and the podium). So we took the 402 bus (which goes very rarely, so you need to plan accordingly) that took us straight to the entrance. There was still some snow left, so we had fun with that and also walked around the whole length (5,4 km). It was a nice walk, though I had to catch my breath after some steep parts. The pitlane was open, but it was a bit underwhelming without cars or anything really.
We made a lot of videos and it was a fun walk. Because of the bus schedule, we ended up in the Grid Hotel, in the middle of the circuit, where there were some cars (a Lamborghini, a Porsch and some other formula type of car) AND A SIMULATOR. Which is great for killing time – especially if it is free and there is nobody else to use it. So that was what we did – a few races, and I’m happy to announce that I did NOT become the champion of Brno, but I did of Spielberg.
I loved the track, though it was so bare, so few grandstands – at this moment I can’t really imagine how it will host the MotoGP, but I guess that will be some changes. It also had a very special feel – completely different from all the other tracks I had visited before – the buildings and everything had a kind of socialist style (the colors, the materials, just the whole concepts).
So, if you are around Brno, these two are my recommendations. If it’s not the winter, there are of course actual events on the circuit, so check (or czech) out their website too!
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