Liberty Media can hardly be accused of underplaying the addition of a third American round of the world championship to the Formula 1 calendar for 2023. The buzz around the Las Vegas Grand Prix is huge and the race is still eight months away.
Long before then, F1 will return to Miami for the second edition of Liberty’s other major new event on the schedule. While the inaugural race around the Hard Rock Stadium last year was an undoubted hit, there were also clear areas for improvement.
The promoters went all-out to offer the full Miami experience to a crowd of 80,000 fans. The event had a beach club in the middle of the track complete with a much-mocked ‘fake marina’, gondolas were built for fans and VIPs to get a birds-eye view of the action and some of Miami’s top restaurants set up camp by a nightclub at turn one.
But, for some, the Miami’s first grand prix fell short of the five-star experience the promoters intended to offer. Attendees complained of traffic congestion in and out of the track and sub-standard organisation once inside the circuit’s grounds.
The Paddock Club was the big talking point after the race with reports the high-end experience left much to be desired. F1 top-level package comes with a hefty price tag, but after reportedly running out of food and drink over the weekend there were rumours many clients demanded refunds. Other attendees reported difficulty finding water supplies as temperatures reached 32C, and difficulty navigating their way around the Miami International Autodrome, situated in the car park of the local NFL team’s stadium grounds.
With among the dearest ticket prices on the F1 calendar last season, the promotors knew improvements were needed to keep fans coming back. Tyler Epp, president of the Miami Grand Prix, said a lot has been evaluated over the last ten months.
“One thing I’ve learned has been that every first-year event has challenges and I think we certainly had them,” Epp began in an exclusive interview for RaceFans. “But I would tell you that we still view the first year as a very good success for us.
“We think about it in terms of stakeholders and who the people are that are most important to us and making sure that we’re delivering the experience that either they’re paying for – or a team or F1. Whoever it is, it needs to be able to operate and put on the event.
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“There are certain things that we didn’t think from our internal standards worked as much and we’ve addressed them aggressively.”
Epp has a varied background working on sporting events in the United States over 20 years, including a stint with the Kansas City Chiefs NFL team and the San Diego Padres MLB squad. He also worked with motorsport teams in NASCAR, IndyCar and the Grand-Am Series.
But despite his experience working in and around sports, Epp admitted F1 was a very different proposition.
“I don’t know what my expectations were. I don’t think we knew what to expect,” he admits. “What we were facing is trying to combine some of the success that we’ve all had with North American sporting events and appreciating the history of Formula 1 and trying to find out where that meshes.”
After some negative comments from some individuals attending last season’s race, fan experience was top of the agenda for Epp and his team for 2023.
“We’ve got to be a little careful how we define the fan experience,” he acknowledges. “We’ve really tried to set the standard for how we want to deliver a grand prix.”
Access to refreshments and heat relief is one area he intends to address. “Especially for some of our GA [general admission] ticketholders, which we call campus pass-holders, we needed more shade and we needed more access to water.
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“It was so hot and I think it was all exacerbated because of that. But it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have done a better job of it. So we have implemented a whole new plan that includes shade and water for the campus pass and grandstand users.
“The 300 level of Hard Rock Stadium is covered, there is automatic shade there as well as all the restrooms. It also has access to a view of the paddock this year.” The teams’ hospitality bases have been relocated inside the stadium for the 2023 event.
Fans were not the only ones to complain as many drivers bemoaned track conditions over the opening weekend. Fernando Alonso was among them, calling the asphalt “not F1-standard.” Poor grip off the racing line was a particular problem, reducing overtaking opportunities.
On top of that the tight chicane which formed turns 14 and 15 was widely panned, Lewis Hamilton likening it to a “B&Q car park”. That remains in place for this year’s race, but Epp said there are logistical reasons behind that decision.
“We worked with Formula 1, the FIA, and listened to the feedback on the drivers’ council, and we took that very seriously,” he says. “The adjustments that we made to that chicane are directly from the driver’s council, directly through the FIA. There will be a minor change to the rumble strip on the driver’s left going into [turn] 14 and then a very slight change to the apex at turn 15.
“But for the most part, there are no significant changes to that chicane, and there’s a couple of reasons for that. The biggest of which is that we have to work with the state of Florida and there are public roads all around that turn and so our ability to make a big impact there is very, very limited.
“The second reason is just geographically it sits on a small plot of land, so [if] you go a foot this way, a foot that way, you just drop off. So just the functional ability to actually make a significant change to that area is just really limiting.”
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Formula 1 sent the Miami Grand Prix promoters a report after the race, which Epp said “largely [had] the same things that we saw that didn’t go well” meaning they weren’t battling on any major points. One thing that was changed, however, was the troublesome track surface.
“We just felt like there was an opportunity to continue to make the surface better,” said Epp. “We’ve got great owners in Stephen Ross and Tom Garfinkel [who] give us the opportunity to continue to focus on the reason we did this in the first place.”
As RaceFans spoke to Epp one week before the Bahrain Grand Prix, circuit designer Hermann Tilke’s team had just completed the resurfacing. “The top layer was taken off and reapplied with a new mix of aggregate, and we expect it to race very well,” Epp explained.
Las Vegas is pulling out all the stops for its new event but Miami, sitting on the opposite end of the calendar with a 10-year race deal already agreed, can feel secure in its position for the time being at least. Still, it’s clear the organisers are not being complacent about the areas for improvement which were apparent last year, and have genuinely listened to both drivers and fans to enhance the 2023 experience.
