Our Executive Editor Ben Barna heads to Singapore with Marriott Bonvoy for the Singapore Grand Prix, the first-ever night race and one of the crown jewels in the Forumla One calendar. What followed was an F1 fever dream.
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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2025
4:50 AM
After the longest direct flight in the world—19 hours from JFK to Changi—I check into the Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore. The lobby is empty, it’s dark outside, and I’m slightly delirious and wide awake. I didn’t get to see the famous Jewel featuring the world’s largest indoor waterfall at Changi Airport—the number one thing people mentioned when I told them I was going to Singapore—but I vow to see it on my way out. Sleep is not an option, so I answer emails from my room on the 23rd floor and wait for the sun to come up.
6:50 AM
The sun rises right on time, and the view from my room reveals itself: a network of highways that loop around the Marina Bay Street Circuit, which is the track for the Singapore Grand Prix. Because it’s one of F1’s eight street races, most of the roads around the hotel are closed, barricaded, or just off-limits to pedestrians. To the right is the Singapore Flyer, one of the world’s largest Ferris wheels, and beyond that are dense clusters of apartment buildings that seem to stretch on forever.
7:13 AM
Breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton is a wow. Congee with a dozen toppings, fresh-cut tropical fruit on ice, miso soup, dim sum, grilled fish, Indian curries, and omelets on demand. It’s obscene, but I try to act civilized.
11:00 AM
I meet the group in the lobby: Jacob, a fellow New Yorker with Marriott Bonvoy; Tae Lee, a Korean artist here for Cool Hunting; and Greg, our local guide-slash-fixer from the agency 160over90. Jacob tells me some of the other guests we’ll be seeing this weekend actually redeemed Marriott Bonvoy points for this whole experience through the brand’s Moments platform, where points can unlock access to things like Paddock Club passes, pit lane walks, and team meet-and-greets. Basically, money-can’t-buy perks paid for in points.
11:31 AM
It rains on and off, and Greg casually drops that the Singapore government is cloud seeding, literally spraying chemicals into the sky to make it rain and clear the air ahead of the race. Everyone reacts accordingly.
4:51 PM
After seeing the sights—Haji Lane, New Bahru, a cat café hidden on the third floor of a nondescript building—we try our luck at Atlas, Singapore’s temple of gin. It’s a palatial Art Deco cathedral of bottles and brass. The wait is over an hour, which feels both absurd and expected.
5:29 PM
We end up at Mr. Stork, a rooftop bar nearby, while we wait for our table. The view from the top is staggering. Beyond the skyline, the harbor is dotted with hundreds of ships. My jet lag fades away.
6:09 PM
We finally make it to Atlas, where I order one of the best martinis on earth while Greg fills us in on Singapore trivia, like the country’s quiet Chanel bag craze. He tells us to count how many we spot the next time we’re in a mall. Even though I spend half the weekend inside one (downtown Singapore is basically a network of connected malls), I forget to.
8:10 PM
Alexis from 160over90 hands us our Marriott Bonvoy and Mercedes-AMG Petronas Paddock Club passes for the night’s practice round. Every F1 race has a Paddock Club, the ultimate hospitality suite perched above the garages and pit lane. It’s a sensory-overload fantasyland where the world’s most privileged fans sip champagne alongside executives, sponsors, celebrities, influencers, team insiders, and, somehow, me.
8:33 PM
We arrive at the Mercedes-AMG Petronas lounge, our home base for the weekend. It’s a private sanctuary for the team’s VIPs, partners, and invited guests that somehow feels both corporate and chic. There’s a buffet, a cheese station, an open bar, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the pit lane and track. It’s only night one and no meaningful racing has taken place yet, but the room is buzzing.
9:03 PM
We’re handed bright orange VIP lanyards granting access to the garages and pit lane, a perk typically reserved for sponsors and Marriott Bonvoy Moments members who cashed in points for access that most people could never buy. Just like that, we’re inside the belly of Formula 1. As a devoted Drive to Survive watcher, it’s both strangely familiar and completely surreal to be walking past the same garages I’ve only seen on Netflix.
