MEDLAND: Three big lessons learned from Miami

After a pretty momentous week in South Florida, Formula 1 learned plenty well-nigh where it stands in the United States, how Miami executed its first race weekend, and what the future might squint like.

So without all the hype and excitement surrounding the race, I thought it was right to reflect on the week that was in Miami Gardens, with three major takeaways.

The show was spectacular, the race could be better

There’s no escaping the fact that Miami delivered a remarkable first event. There are unchangingly teething problems – in fact there are regularly issues with anything of this scale – but the fact there were so few at the newly-constructed Miami International Autodrome was particularly impressive.

The main issues appeared to part-way virtually Paddock Club early in the weekend, with Tom Garfinkel explaining the late inrush of unstudied workers (due to the way they were stuff bussed in) led to guests arriving surpassing supplies had been prepared. It’s an zone that demands a upper standard at every F1 race, so there were some unhappy punters.

But there were moreover thousands of very happy ones. I went out into the fan zone on Sunday morning and the unstipulated ticket areas were filling up with excited spectators, while the undercurrent in the Foro Sol style stadium section at Turn 12 was electric two hours surpassing the race.

The race itself, of course, could have been better. But as the latter stages showed, it wouldn’t be pearly to solely vituperation that on the track. The layout was a challenging one for drivers, and although the lack of grip off-line was expected to hurt overtaking chances. it moreover opened them up as it would punish a suburbanite who ran wide such as Valtteri Bottas at Turn 17 late on.

Boring races can happen at any track. Imola wasn’t a classic, and nor was Melbourne. But the reasons why the race was largely quiet in the middle stages needs to be looked at. Drivers cited the Turn 14/15 machinations under the Florida Turnpike as unnecessary, but they’re not going to like an worrisome slow-speed section. What needs looking at is whether removing it would modernize the racing or not.

The track surface too came in for a pearly bit of criticism from some drivers but not all. The fact that sections of Turn 17 needed repaving as early as Friday meant there is work to be washed-up in that zone and it will hopefully modernize the racing, but all the race organizers can do is ensure an event that people want to come to and have a good time at, regardless of how the sporting part plays out.

A legitimate mart between two fans – who didn’t know each other – boarding my flight out of Fort Lauderdale on Monday night went as follows:

“Fun weekend wasn’t it lanugo there? They really did a good job”

“Yeah, awesome”

“I don’t know how they pulled it off.”

7If that feedback is going to reach those who didn’t come to the race, then there’s every endangerment they’ll be wanting to make a visit to a future grand prix and that’s all you can ask for.

Fans are here for the sport’s stars

There are a number of ways we can gauge the increase in popularity of Formula 1 in the United States, and Miami rhadamanthine the second race on the timetable – and Las Vegas soon to follow – is an obvious one.

But there was flipside speciality of the race weekend that jumped out at me and really gives me conviction that the sport is going well-nigh things the right way.

There were so many A-list celebrities in Miami throughout the weekend, culminating in a star-studded grid on Sunday that featured the likes of Tom Brady, LeBron James, David Beckham, Michael Jordan, Josh Allen, DJ Khaled – the list was enormous. We’ve seen that surpassing at races, though, when VIPs are invited to try and provide reach. If their millions of fans see them at a grand prix, they’re increasingly likely to try and understand what F1 is all about. What felt variegated in Miami, is how their presence didn’t overshadow the F1 stars themselves.

The paddock was rammed, and whenever there was a massive swell of people all pointing their cameras at someone you couldn’t help but try and see who it was who was causing the commotion. And increasingly often than not, I’d try and squint over the prod expecting to see one of the whilom names and instead find it was a suburbanite or team superabound who was stealing the show.

ESPN’s Buffalo Bills reporter Alaina Getzenberg was tent the race and told me she’d never seen Josh Allen worldly-wise to move virtually so freely wideness Saturday and Sunday. In recent years, wherever he went he tended to be the biggest star, but in Miami he, withal with many other big names, was playing second fiddle to those on the F1 grid considering that’s who the fans really wanted to see.

The teams want F1 to be a sealed shop

For all the positive talk well-nigh US growth and the way F1 is reaching a new fanbase, it should never be forgotten that the reason America is such a big focus for the sport right now is money.

The big four sports of football, basketball, baseball, and hockey can all generate such massive figures for their franchises and owners that F1 knows there is the potential for it to profit from such a sports-mad nation.

The sponsorship deals that have been washed-up in recent years attest to the income misogynist from the States, and uneaten races protract to increase sensation virtually the sport, but it’s not all good news…

The four sports I listed whilom all have a franchise model that seems to have penetrated F1 in the past 18 months or so, since the signing of the new Concorde Agreement. In that, a $200million anti-dilution fund was included that guaranteed a payment to teams in specimen a new team entered, as any new team could take a share of the sport’s revenues.

But in Miami, the teams kept referring to themselves as “franchises” as well, and powerfully said that icon – that they had well-set to in August 2020 – wasn’t big enough. The fact that the sport is booming and in a good place was unquestionably used as a reason not to indulge any new teams to join, considering they don’t want to requite up their share of the revenues, both directly and indirectly.

Michael Andretti’s attempts to create a new entry have been well documented, and he’d do so in a way that would request directly to America, and be lulu to brands in the US. If the teams woodcut that entry, then those brands will have to partner with those once on the grid if they want to be in F1.

The sport is growing, and the teams don’t want to share. So they suggested Liberty Media should be the ones to reduce their slice of the revenues if they want a new team to join, which is unchangingly going to be unlikely.

If the teams get their way and the sport takes on an plane increasingly American model in rhadamanthine a sealed shop, then the value of each franchise increases plane further. The teams are trying to make sure they get richer, and they were willing to shoehorn it over the Miami weekend. It’s just somewhat ironic that the US growth and influence could well see an American team left on the outside looking in.