Organisers of Formula 1’s Miami Grand Prix believe the addition of Las Vegas to the calendar can only be beneficial for both events.
Miami joined Formula 1’s schedule in 2022 and held its sophomore grand prix last weekend at the Miami International Autodrome.
Las Vegas will hold the penultimate race of the 2023 season, becoming the United States’ third grand prix, and is expected to be one of the highest-profile sporting events this year.
That led to concerns that Miami’s event could be diluted by Las Vegas’ arrival but that has been dismissed by organisers at the Hard Rock Stadium.
“I’m a believer that all ships rise with a rising tide,” said Miami GP Managing Partner Tom Garfinkel.
“I think having three grands prix [in the US] is great, I think the more people come out and experience these events in the US, experience Formula 1 racing, the more fans there’ll be – I’m excited about that.
“They’re all different, they have different virtues and reasons to go – Vegas will be a night race on the Strip in November, this is very different, then there’s Austin, Texas, they’re all different things.
“It’s the same cars, drivers, competition, but everything around it can be different and it gives you reasons to go. Montreal’s different from Singapore, and different from Silverstone.”
Miami cited a weekend attendance of 270,000 – up almost 40,000 from 2023 – with approximately 90,000 spectators per day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Garfinkel outlined that the long-term ambition is to increase capacity but is cognisant of not detracting from the experience.
“We’ll see how it goes, but I want to grow it a bit at a time as we operationally get better and better,” he said.
“What I don’t want to have is long lines of concessions, long lines of bathrooms, two hours of traffic in and out of here, I’ve experienced that at other events and that’s not what we want to do.”
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