F1 news: Plans for Miami Grand Prix shelved for foreseeable future after local lawmakers' delay puts 2020 hopes on ice

Plans for a Grand Prix on the streets of Miami next year have hit hit the skids after local lawmakers delayed a vote on whether to give the green light to the Formula One race.

It is the latest twist in a saga which has already seen F1 put the brakes on plans to hold the race in 2019 after residents complained about the route the 2.6 mile track would take. It was due to run down the palm-tree lined Biscayne Boulevard and pass through the peaceful Bayfront Park which fuelled the opposition.

In June last year a group of 11 Bayfront Park residents sent a cease and desist order to Miami’s City Hall demanding that it puts the brakes on negotiations over the race. It made an impact.

In July, F1’s commercial boss Sean Bratches said that the sport had scrapped plans for the 2019 race . Instead he said it had “decided, in consultation with the Miami authorities, to postpone sign-off until later in the summer, with the aim of running the first Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix in the 2020 season.”

At the end of September the Miami City Commission was due to vote on whether to approve the contract for the race and its organiser Stephen Ross, the billionaire owner of the Miami Dolphins NFL team. However, it was indefinitely deferred and a spokesperson for the City of Miami said there was a six-month window for the Commissioners to vote on the race again. They kept its hopes alive but left it to the eleventh hour as the vote was due to take place on 28th March which was just before the deadline expired.

The outcome was a closely-guarded secret but it has been revealed in the minutes of the meeting. They show that there has been yet another delay as the vote “was deferred to the May 23, 2019 Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting.” Miami is still in with a shout but its chances of hosting a Grand Prix in 2020 seem to be remote as it usually takes well over a year to get a race to the finish line once authorities have agreed to it. Testimony to this, a Grand Prix on the streets of Vietnam’s capital city Hanoi will join the calendar next year after the deal was signed in November 2018.

Miami got a taste of F1 in October last year when it hosted a fan festival which was first revealed by Independent Sport. The event featured a street demonstration of F1 cars, a line-up of supercars and a garage located in the hotly-debated Bayfront Park. According to F1 the event attracted 80,000 spectators compared to the 100,000 who reportedly attended the festival on the streets of central London in the run up to the 2017 British Grand Prix.

F1 isn’t the only European sport which has struggled to find a home in Miami. Since 2013, David Beckham (pictured above) has been negotiating with authorities there about building a stadium for his Inter Miami Major League Soccer franchise. After years of setbacks it finally came to a head last week when the nearby city of Fort Lauderdale agreed to let Beckham’s group begin demolition of a local stadium so it can finally begin construction.

If Miami gives the red light to the Grand Prix as well it would make a much bigger dent in F1’s plans than those of the city. In 2017 F1 was sold to American investment firm Liberty Media and it soon announced that one of its priorities was boosting the sport’s tally of races in the United States. F1 currently only has one race there – the US Grand Prix in Texas – and this has led to the sport trailing in popularity behind the home-grown NASCAR and IndyCar series.

Liberty has said it is targeting “destination cities” such as New York and Las Vegas and in a bid to drive interest in F1 it will host fan festivals in Chicago and Los Angeles this year. Adding to the pressure on Liberty, five of its 21 race contracts expire before 2020 so even though Vietnam will join the calendar then, the overall tally could still be down.

The races that are at risk are in Britain, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Spain and together they pay Liberty an estimated £100m annually in hosting fees. Several of these organisers have said that it could force them out of F1.

In August last year Angelo Sticchi Damiani, president of the Automobile Club d'Italia (ACI), said that the 2017 Italian Grand Prix made “a strong loss, and the 2018 budget will not be different either. It is clear that such a situation is not sustainable in the long term. The ACI is ready to do its part, but not under any conditions.”

Money could also fuel the demise of the British Grand Prix. Its contract is coming to an end because its organiser, the British Racing Drivers’ Club (BRDC), has broken it seven years early. The race, which is held at the BRDC’s Silverstone circuit, was the first on the F1 calendar when the championship launched in 1950. It holds a special significance as seven of the ten teams are based in Britain along with F1 itself.

In 2017, when the BRDC announced its decision to drop the race, its chairman John Grant said “it is not financially viable for us to deliver the British Grand Prix under the terms of our current contract.” He added that “by running the British Grand Prix we sustained net losses of £2.8m in 2015 and £4.8m in 2016 – that’s £7.6m over two years. We expect to lose a similar amount this year. To continue on this path is not only unsustainable, it would put at risk Silverstone, the home of British motor racing.”

Not only has Liberty failed to secure Miami as a fall-back option but its efforts there have actually exacerbated the situation with the other races. Typically, the running costs of a Grand Prix are paid by the organiser and covered by ticket sales whilst the government foots the bill for the hosting fee as the race promotes their country. Hosting fees come to an average of £22.5m annually but the agreement with Miami makes no mention of a payment. Miami doesn’t need F1 to drive tourism so if the authorities had been asked to pay the going rate it could have sent the race straight to the pits.

It is believed that instead of the organiser being liable for the running costs, as is usually the case, the risk and reward of the Miami Grand Prix will be shared between Liberty and Ross, who has an estimated net worth of £5.8bn.

With this in mind, the Formula One Promoters Association, which represents 16 of the races, released a statement in January saying that “new races should not be introduced to the detriment of existing events although the association is encouraged by the alternative business models being offered to prospective venues.” Time will tell whether Liberty needs to give them similar terms to Miami to keep them ticking over.