11/05/2023
NEWS STORY
Organisers of the Miami Grand Prix have admitted that they are open to the race becoming a night time event under floodlights.
Such a move would mean the race would be held in the middle-of-the-night as far as F1's European audience is concerned, but with the sport becoming increasingly 'American', and fans in other parts of the world having had to endure 'middle of the night' racing for decades this is unlikely to enter the equation.
What could be a factor is Florida's notorious weather, a heavy storm on Saturday night having washed away most of the previous two day's rubber.
F1's management is very keen on night races, especially with city backdrops, and surely Miami would fit the bill.
"We've had some discussions about that," admits Miami Dolphins CEO, Tom Garfinkel, co-promoter of the race. "We've had some discussions about potentially doing that.
"Obviously this time of year the weather's a little unpredictable," he admits, "the weather's been nice this year so far, last year was unseasonably hot, but there's a lot of factors that go into that with F1 and television and everything else so we've got to weigh all those things, but we're certainly open-minded to it."
There are currently six events on the calendar that take place under floodlights, however other than the weather another consideration is the disturbance to local residents, particularly as F1 had such a hard time getting permission for the race in the first place.
"We're not at a place where we're making a decision right now," stresses Garfinkel. "We're just having discussions where if we did it what would it look like."
Much work has been carried out on the track's facilities since last year's inaugural event, most notably the decision to relocate the teams' hospitality units to the Hard Rock Stadium's playing field.
Though this was done primarily with the race in mind, Garfinkel admits that the F1 facilities could turn out to be an all-year round money-maker.
"We'll do some things around football games, but we'll do some fun things," he said. "I'd like to leave the driver signs up above the garages and for football games we'll do some premium tailgating down there. So someone can rent out Lewis Hamilton's garage and have a bartender, they can pull their car right in, have a chef, do some premium tailgating as well."
Sigh.