London: F1® DRIVE - The Official F1® Karting Experience

Excellent facilities, great staff

We took a group of 9 year olds for a birthday treat and everyone had a great time. The staff were excellent: friendly, efficient, safety-conscious but without being oppressive. Technology impressive, letting all the boys see their lap times etc. Food and drink fine afterwards, good range of choices. If only the football side was doing as well as the stadium!

Response from the operator: Thanks for taking the time to review us — we really appreciate it!

via Tripadvisor

Great track spoiled by non-existent customer service

F1 Drive was gifted to us as a Christmas present and we were really looking forward to the experience. Despite thoroughly enjoying the track and karts the entire experience was spoiled by the complete lack of customer service and poor organisation of the team running it. We left with a very sour taste in our mouths. From the moment we arrived, there was very little direction. There was no signage explaining how to use the lockers and no staff member available to guide us. The lockers themselves were wet and unusable – my balaclava actually got soaked because of this. When I asked a member of staff for a replacement, I was told to get it myself and was to find a bin dispose of the wet one, despite the staff member standing right next to one. The simulator experience was equally disappointing. Staff seemed uninterested and unprofessional, offering zero instruction on how to use the simulators. The desk is very tall and on approach it looked like there was no one there because they had all chosen to sit on the lower level desk for a conversation. The only instruction received was to move my chair closer like you would in a car, but during the race the chair repeatedly slid loudly and violently backwards disrupting my simulator experience – this happened 4–5 times and no one came over to assist. There was no proactive support at all. We weren’t even told how many simulator races we would be having. When my partner mentioned we were leaving the simulators to go to our kart race, he was met with a dismissive “ what do you mean - that’s all you get anyway,” which felt unnecessary. There was also a long wait before being taken to the safety briefing video, with no communication about what was happening. When it came to starting the race and qualifying, instructions were either unclear or non-existent. Staff were shouting very aggressively which created confusion rather than clarity. Staff were using the same vague hand signal to stand up or to move your cart forward. Staff members condescendingly told us to take a ‘mental photo’ of our numbers and there was no process to call people up to get in their karts other than to look at a screen, as you can imagine doing this with a heavy helmet on might not be the easiest. At the end of the race, there was no chequered flag, no last-lap announcement – we were simply ushered back into the pits. Afterwards, there was no one gathering the group, no goodbye, and no instructions on what to do with the overalls. Staff saw us walking toward the exit holding our overalls and instead of offering help, saw us and turned around and walked the other way. To make matters worse, staff were openly having unprofessional discussions over team radios in front of customers, walking around voice-noting and texting on their phones, and generally appearing far more interested in chatting with each other than engaging with customers. There was no visible passion for the sport or pride in the brand. If one staff member had behaved this way, I’d assume they were having a bad day. However, every single employee we encountered displayed the same attitude, which suggests a much wider cultural issue within the business. Inexperienced staff seemed embarrassed to be doing their job in the presence of their peers.

via Tripadvisor

First time

We did this experience for my daughter’s 18 birthday. Overall, it was fun until she hurt herself, so not too sure we’d do it again.

via Viator

Don't use BUYAGIFT - their vouchers have no availability

BUYAGIFT F1 Drive Elite karting experience a DISASTER. The buyagift website has no availability despite the venue at the Tottenhotspur Stadium having loads. Phoning F1 Drive direct doesn't work as they redirect me back to BUYAGIFT. This has gone on for days. BUYAGIFT message me with AI tripe. I cant call them and BUYAGIFT's promise to call me didn't happen! DISASTER.

via Tripadvisor

Lovely experience but...

I bought the experience for my husband and he thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I would put more emphasis on informing the participants what to do, especially at the beginning of the event so that everyone knows that they should find an overall for themselves, and then wait until called for the briefing. Many participants were lost st that point.

Response from the operator: Thank you for your feedback, and we’re so pleased to hear your husband thoroughly enjoyed the experience! We really appreciate your comments regarding the start of the event. Your suggestion about clearer guidance for participants, particularly around finding overalls and where to wait, is very helpful, and we’ll be sure to share this with the team to improve the overall experience. Thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughts, and we hope to welcome you both back again in the future!

via Tripadvisor