A little over a year ago the Miami Grand Prix was a dream, this weekend that dream has become a reality as Formula 1 enjoys unprecedented hype for a race as America embraces the sport at the highest level for the first time in over half a century of trying.
We could write and tell you that never before has a race been so greatly marketed and anticipated than the Grand Prix around the Hard Rock Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins, but rather allow Martin Brundle, a veteran of countless F1 race weekends, to have his say.
“There’s so much anticipation for this Grand Prix, like I’ve never seen before,” Brundle said on Sky F1. “I’ve never known so much hype and excitement before a Grand Prix. And they’ve done a great job here, folding what looks like a great race track around the Miami Dolphins stadium.”
F1 has flirted and courted America since the sport became an FIA World Championship in 1950. In fact, Miami International Autodrome is the 11th venue to host a race Stateside and the 61st Grand Prix on United States soil. No other country has had so many F1 races at different tracks.
So no lack of trying over the years with little mass appeal to the market until, of course, Netflix and F1 combined to produce Drive To Survive over the past few years, now everyone wants a slice of the action.
This year there are two F1 races in the USA with Miami this weekend, and Austin later in the year. Next year there will be three as Las Vegas returns for serious crack this time around.
Brundle: All of a sudden, America’s really embraced Formula 1
The Sky F1 pundit continued: “I’ve been to well over half of the thousand-odd Grands Prix that have taken place in Formula 1’s 72-year history, and we’ve always been trying to crack America. It’s not like we haven’t been trying for a long time. But all of a sudden, America’s really embraced Formula 1.”
In about one year Apex Circuit Design were tasked to turn the area around the Hard Rock Stadium into a street track as attempts to run it in other areas around the city failed. That they the track builders have produced what they have in such a sport of time is remarkable.
Brundle noticed: “I was really impressed. Yes, we are basically racing around the Miami Dolphins’ Stadium, but wow… there’s some really quick corners, some long straights and some slower bits right alongside the walls.
“It’s a proper race track, and it has not been compromised. I think the drivers are going to be slightly wide-eyed in a couple of places,” predicted the former F1 driver turned pundit.
From an eye-candy perspective, Miami ticks all the boxes as few can do ‘Big Shows’ like the Americans who are the ‘big daddies’ of huge stadium bling and big events which the Grand Prix in the Magic City is proving to be.
Unlike Brundle some F1 drivers not impressed with the new Miami track
However, after the first day of practice on Friday, not all drivers were raving after two sessions littered with spins, wall-brushing and inevitable bent metal. The very ‘green’ surface getting gripper, but the virgin race tarmac sightly off the racing line proved to be perilous.
Speaking to reporters after the first day of learning the new track, seven-time F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton said: “The track’s quite nice to drive except for the chicane. It’s so tight. It reminds me of being in a B&Q car park when I was six years old/seven years old, in a go-kart, going in between cars.
“It’s a corner where maybe in future they can remove that one and it will improve the track. It’s kind of crazy when you think that people in this day and age should be able to make a flat road relatively easy.’
“There were frigging big, big, big bumps and so many places where the track like joins up with somewhere else. So I don’t know if they will be able to grind that at night and improve it,” ventured Mercedes driver Hamilton.
Fellow veteran, Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was also not impressed: “I’m extremely disappointed that there is no grip off-line,’ the Red Bull driver said. It’s a shame because I think the racing will be bad due to that. As soon as you try to go off-line, there is no grip. It’s done. It feels very gravelly off-line. So the racing will be hard.”
Magnussen: It’s quite unique I’d say, so in that way cool
F1 returnee, Haas driver Kevin Magnussen liked the layout: “That’s kind of cool,’ the Haas said. ‘It’s not thrilling in the same way as the high-speed corners, but it’s very blind and it’s like over a crest with big kerbs and big change of direction at low speed. It’s quite unique I’d say, so in that way cool. But it’s obviously very slow.”
McLaren’s Lando Norris echoed his rivals: “It is extremely tricky. It is very bumpy in some areas which is not quite what we were expecting. I think everyone was expecting it to be very smooth and beautiful but it’s not.”
It does not need Nostradamus to figure out there will be more bump and grind during FP3 today, but expect that to ramp up substantially in qualifying where traffic and incidents are sure to play a big role on the grid order for Sunday’s race.
The track is a mix of Monaco and Baku, which means a race of attrition and survival of the finest and fleetest on Sunday. Errors will be punished, safety cars are almost a sure thing. Whatever the case, don’t blink while watching the race on Sunday: Shit is gonna happen!
And be sure F1 will live up to all the hype as the coolest sport in the world, as more and more American motorsports aficionados, and even all-around sports fans, realise what they have been missing out on all these years.
Allow us to introduce ourselves ? Welcome to the #MiamiGP ?️?
? @AutoNation pic.twitter.com/wvG6d0znS2
— F1 Miami Grand Prix (@f1miami) May 7, 2022