It's been a month already but I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that we got to watch an F1 race! We spent four days at the Suzuka Circuit, watching the practice sessions and even the feature races, attending all driver interview sessions, lining up for merch, and leaning all the way into the chaos and excitement.

Honestly, the highlight of the F1 weekend for us was Thursday. We unexpectedly caught an Aston Martin/Honda event that was about to start, so we waited in line to check it out. To our surpise, it was a small fan meet featuring F1 2009 World Champion, Jenson Button, who was Aston Martin's ambassador this year. We actually got to see him! And even better, because I was wearing an Aston Martin Suzuka exclusive cap, I was selected to get an autograph! Incredibly lucky would be an understatement for that whole afternoon. We got him to sign my cap and my notebook, and the best part? I was even featured on the Aston Martin F1 Instagram page, while I was beside Jenson!

Practice and quali were super exciting. My favorite teams, Williams and Red Bull, weren't doing so well, but to be honest, I actually didn't mind. To actually see and hear all these cars in motion? Chills, literal chills. My husband and I both had tears in our eyes because we couldn't believe we were actually seeing them run past us.

On to the race itself: We had such good seats!!! We were at Turn 1, and saw all the action just right after the lights went out. We knew Ferrari had good starts but I was so psyched that Oscar led after the first turn. Our grandstand (B2) had so many Aussies, so the crowd around us was roaring when he overtook the Ferraris and the Mercs. I was so happy about the Kimi win though. He's my driver this season; I enjoy seeing drivers find their footing and rising to the occasion when it matters.

We legitimately got worried about Ollie's crash. It happened on the other side of the track and it was barely shown on the LCD screen at the time. We were so relieved to hear over the live commentary that he was okay, but it was a huge one. Later on, we found out that Franco's Alpine superclipped right before the same turn and he didn't see Ollie coming when his car slowed down immensely, which caused the crash. Honestly, it was a stark reminder of how dangerous these new rules are, so hopefully, F1 and FIA figure something out because I don't want to see any more of these incidents caused by sudden decelerations in the next races.

Japanese food at the track? No notes. Perfection. Every choice was good and worth its price. Our favorite stall, though, was the Heineken booth. They had a souvenir Suzuka aluminum glass for Y400. You can also buy 6 cans and get a free cooler. Watching an F1 race with a cold beer in hand? Nothing better.

The only "con" for me the entire weekend was getting to and from the track. We didn't hate it; but the only choices were waiting in line for hours or walking for 6km each way to get to the train station, and vice versa. It was a good thing we went with a group of my friends from law school, who knew the shortcuts since they've already watched a couple of races in previous years. I'd definitely want to watch another race, but the transpo situation is making me want to consider Australia (or even China) for next time instead.