Miami Grand Prix: track and statistics

After they bought Formula 1, Liberty Media almost immediately started talking about increasing the number of American podiums. In 2016, CEO Greg Maffei outlined priorities: digital broadcast monetization, calendar expansion, and long-term contracts to host races in Miami and Las Vegas. The first two points were achieved, in 2022 there was a race in Miami, this year in Las Vegas. Everything is going according to plan.

Miami is the largest metropolitan area in the southeastern United States and one of the major financial centers. It was important for Liberty Media to host this Grand Prix, whose history of organization has included many lawsuits from the local community against the organizers. In the end a compromise was found.

Initially, it was planned to hold a street race in Miami. The mayor’s office didn’t seem to mind, but they said there was no money – if you want, spend it for free. The decision to carry out the project was postponed several times, the parties regularly sat at the negotiating table and did not agree on anything. As a result, construction of the route in the harbor was eventually abandoned.

In the fall of 2019, a new track construction project, independent of the city government, appeared in the area where Hard Rock Stadium is located. Stadium owner Steven Ross was willing to fund construction and the costs of running the race.

The track configuration had to be changed, limited only to the territory of the stadium. She no longer went into town and the competition schedule was limited so as not to interfere with local schoolchildren and students. A ten-year contract was signed on April 18, 2021.

36 configuration options were developed before construction. The final version is similar to Albert Park in Melbourne or Sochi Autodrom. The circuit in Miami is temporary and, in addition, being built in a limited area where it is impossible to place a large stationary circuit.

Follow features

Miami International Autodrome. The length of the track is 5.41 kilometers, the circle includes 19 corners (12 left and seven right), three straights and three DRS zones. The maximum design speed is 320 km/h. The project includes three points where overtaking is possible – in the 1st, 11th and 17th corners.

Between Turns 13 and 16 there is an elevation change where the track drops and rises as it passes under the viaducts. As conceived by the track developers at the Apex Circuit Design agency, there is an “error generator” of multiple blind turns in succession.

On the track there are both profiled sections with excellent grip, which require soft suspension tuning, and sections with really high speeds, where you need to use hard adjustments to get the most out of the aerodynamics. In addition, it is important to ensure efficient acceleration on stretches where slow corners turn into long straights.

High-speed circuit requires a small amount of downforce and high engine power. The load on the brakes is medium, three zones of serious braking are connected by medium speed segments, where the brakes have time to cool down.

Weekend schedule

You can follow the progress of all Formula 1 sessions on our live streaming page.

Tire sets given to teams for the weekend

For Miami, Pirelli again chose the middle three of the compositions – C2, C3 and C4 in the role of Hard, Medium and Soft.

One set of the softest tires must be kept for the qualifying final – then those who drove in the final must return this set to Pirelli.

One set of Medium and Hard tires must be retained for the race – unless declared wet, riders must use at least one of these sets.

Mario Isol: “Last year at the Hard Rock Stadium circuit, the tires behaved as expected on asphalt, which had specific characteristics mainly related to its very high “micro-roughness”. The track has been completely tarmacked ahead of this year’s race and during the usual pre-weekend checks we will check whether there has been any significant change in performance.

At the Miami circuit, the cars have to be set to a medium level of downforce because there are many corners and a very long straight. We brought the “average” trio of C2, C3 and C4 compositions, also because we expect very high temperatures – last year the asphalt warmed up to almost +60C.”