The managing partner of the Miami Grand Prix has announced a group of investments set to benefit the facilities on offer at the Miami International Autodrome ahead of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship‘s second visit to The Magic City.
The investments from the organisers will include a complete resurfacing of the track, while the paddock will be expanded into the Hard Rock Stadium with each team’s hospitality now set to be based inside the home of the Miami Dolphins and will be known as the “Team Village”.
The Miami Grand Prix Managing Partner Tom Garfinkel revealed they took the decision to repave the track in order to improve the racing on show at the Miami International Autodrome after he admitted to being disappointed in the amount of overtaking opportunities available at last year’s race.
“We could have just come back with the racetrack that we had last year,” Garfinkel stated. “The goal we set out was to have great racing, a lot of overtaking, side-by-side racing, and the track we had last year, I don’t remember the exact number of overtakes … but there were parts of the racetrack where there was one line where there should have been the possibility to overtake, and so we weren’t happy with that.
“We’re going to go through with the investment and expense to go ahead and repave it in an effort to get it where it races better. It raced well enough according to the teams and drivers but we want it to be as good as it can possibly be so that’s why we’re going to repave it.”
Aside from the surface issues, some members of the grid also questioned the tracks layout, specifically the tight chicane at turn fourteen and fifteen, with Lewis Hamilton remarking that the chicane was ‘like a B&Q car park’.
After receiving mixed levels of feedback from the teams regarding the chicane, Garfinkel noted that after consultation with Formula 1, the FIA and the circuit designers Tilke, they have elected to leave the layout of the Miami International Autodrome largely untouched ahead of this year’s race.
“The chicane area was developed that way really for safety reasons. We talked to all the team principals, the drivers, Formula 1 and the FIA — there was differing opinions about the chicane. Some of the drivers didn’t like it, some of them thought it was fine, and throughout the grid it was the same feedback, all over the place. Some liked it, some didn’t, some didn’t care.
“We went through it with F1, the FIA and Tilke and decided right now we’re not going to make changes. We thought about flattening it out a bit — we’re still looking at that as we finalise things, but right now it’s going to stay the same. And that’s based on the feedback we received from all of them, which was a lot different — some of them didn’t like it, some of them thought it was fine.
“There is less run-off, so some of the hospitality areas are moving closer to the racetrack but the layout itself is fundamentally the same. It will be all resurfaced though.”
The final level of investment from the organisers will come in the form of further catering supplies after the catering on offer in the hospitality areas was largely criticised by those in attendance at last year’s race.
