Post Malone asked to play on Saturday, wanting race day free so he could party at the most anticipated see-and-be-seen sporting event this year.
Formula One, one of the hottest entertainment properties in the world right now, roars into Miami this weekend as “Drive to Survive” hits South Beach. The inaugural Miami Grand Prix is here and ready to dazzle a United States audience that has at last caught wind of the glamorous, globe-trotting series.
It’s been mostly NASCAR around these parts the last two decades and IndyCar goes up and down in popularity. F1 is so distant, on television at the most sleep-challenging times, and so much glitzier than anything the general American race fan can afford or relate to.
F1 races in Australia and Azerbaijan, in Monza and Monaco, and in Singapore and Saudi Arabia. Its drivers face moral dilemmas when they race in countries with questionable human rights records and deplorable restrictions. A missile struck an oil refinery in March during an F1 practice in Saudi Arabia and drivers kept at it while flames and smoke poured into the sky several miles away. The drivers debated not racing, but ultimately went forward.
And though it’s just so very different from what American race fans are used to, Netflix and its behind-the-scenes docuseries have captured a new audience. Tom Garfinkel, vice chairman of the Miami Dolphins and Hard Rock Stadium, is part-owner of the Miami race. He began chasing a second F1 stop in the U.S. — alongside Texas — in 2017 even before the Netflix series had made the racing hot in this country.
What’s finally been created is a three-day event — five if you count parties leading into the events — that is the most hyped Hard Rock has seen in some time. The cheapest entry point was a Friday general admission pass for $300, and suites never even went on sale to the public because Garfinkel had over 5,000 deposits of $5,000 each through early inquiries.
The U.S. went four years without an F1 race after the series pulled out of Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2007. The series was revived in 2012 in Austin, Texas, and the explosion of “Drive To Survive” after 2019 helped that race grow into a three-day festival that last year drew more than 300,000.
Garfinkel’s group capped the Miami International Autodrome capacity at 85,000 so that those “on the campus” can truly sample some of that fabulous life captured on the Netflix show. The track was originally hoped to be built in downtown Miami but instead was replanted 15 miles north to incorporate Hard Rock Stadium.
South Beach will be open all night and the F1 campus will be the place to be during a busy week that also has two Miami Heat and Florida Panthers playoff games each in the area.
