Is a Miami car park the best that America can offer F1?

F1 in Miami: what’s not to like? Beachfront hotel parties, spectators basking in the Florida sunshine and the artful pastel poster with obligatory palm trees.

In reality, the new circuit is built within the less-than atmospheric car park of the Hard Rock stadium in Miami Gardens.

Attracting the greatest derision is the fake marina at the centre of the circuit, with real boats – available to commandeer for a huge sum of course – plonked on top of a painted surface.

As far as the track itself goes, hopes aren’t high. A simulated lap of the street circuit produced a less than favourable response from those commenting on the post.

Nothing to see here, just Craig Slater having a swim at the #MiamiGP's fake harbour 😂 pic.twitter.com/LB48SQgedq

— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) May 3, 2022

At the time, criticism rained down on the new Miami layout after the race’s announcement, amid much unfavourable comparisons to Sochi, the stillborn Hanoi street circuit and the-then un-raced Jeddah, however that rapid track has now shown itself to be a track particularly inducive to good racing.

Many also pointed out, most prominently 3-time Daytona 24 Hours winner Felipe Albuquerque, that there are plenty more venues suited for grand prix racing than a drab car park street circuit in an area which has no culture of F1 anyway.

Why, in a country blessed with a multitude of ‘classic’ race tracks, is F1 not racing on one of the permanent circuits, but on a strip of vast characterless concrete?

Much like the UK and to some extent Italy, the US has an embarrassment of riches in great race circuits.

Lights out and away we go… in Miami Gardens. Take a lap through our @F1 circuit at @HardRockStadium coming in 2022😎 pic.twitter.com/GyYuo4j8wS

— F1 Miami Grand Prix (@f1miami) April 22, 2021

If any track would be able to lay claim to being the ‘home of F1’ in the States, it would probably be Watkins Glen. Whilst not being the first venue to hold a World Championship grand prix, its place as the final or penultimate round of the series through the 1960s and ’70s made it synonymous with the end-of-season run-in.

Whether it be Jackie Stewart’s last race, James Hunt’s win to continue his ’76 title fightback or Alan Jones’s barnstorming comeback at the race’s final addition, a wide variety of classic racing moments make the ‘Glen, for many, the quintessential American F1 venue.

A few other tracks can provoke fondness and revulsion in equal measure.

Long Beach was long the home to F1’s “United States Grand Prix West”, and it’s rare for someone to see a ’70s F1 highlights reel or picture special that doesn’t have a Ferrari 312 or Lotus 78 careering down the hill after Cook’s Corner. The street circuit felt truly unique, and still runs today in a modified form for IndyCar.

An F1 race at what many feel is the spiritual home of US racing, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, never seemed to take off, and was predominantly (but not immediately) tipped off the calendar by the 2005 Michelin tyre debacle.

Motor sport powerhouse Roger Penske has now taken over the Speedway, and though rumours of an F1 Brickyard return have been quelled somewhat since the 2023 Las Vegas GP announcement, the former grand prix team owner is still rumoured to keen on getting an event back at the home of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing”, the Indy 500. The Brickyard is the only circuit in the US apart from COTA and Miami which has Grade 1 rating.

However, it feels in some ways difficult to separate it from mediocre mid-2000s F1 racing in the midwest though, which may count against it.

On the negative end of the spectrum, the Caesars Palace car park never did much to get the blood pumping, though it is remembered as the location of Tyrrell’s penultimate F1 triumph (the team has its fair share of US highlights).

The same could be said for Detroit. Not a great street circuit, but the venue which hosted one of the all-time great comeback drives from John Watson in 1982, as well as Tyrrell’s final win.

F1, as usual, isn’t helping its image by staying away from venues which are known for racing

The Phoenix street circuit, which ran from ’89-91, was more a less just a series of right-angles, its one standout moment coming when Jean Alesi (in a Tyrrell) decided to make himself a slight nuisance to Ayrton Senna in 1990.

As far as US tracks that have never held an F1 race, Laguna Seca is surely the number one candidate in any one’s dream calendar. An iconic venue in the Californian hills, it has held MotoGP races in the past and after a long break now has IndyCar back again.

To see Verstappen and Leclerc dicing through Laguna Seca’s Corkscrew corner would be mind-boggling.

Having in all likelihood moved into the realm of fantasy here, venues such as Road America and Road Atlanta would be spectacular places to hold a grand prix.

The biggest barrier to F1 racing at these tracks is safety, and secondly infrastructure. It’s doubtful that any of them would be up to the FIA Grade 1 safety standard needed to hold a grand prix.

That said, the amount of money this would cost would surely be dwarfed by the amount it cost to build COTA, or even build the temporary street circuit at Miami.

All the above tracks have a dedicated motor sport following in their locality, particularly Watkins Glen in upstate New York, Indianapolis in Indiana and Laguna Seca in California. The fact that F1 is shunning these areas which would, potentially, eat up grand prix racing does seem to scream ‘elitism’ in itself.

F1, as usual, isn’t doing much to help its image by staying away from areas and venues which are known for racing, and instead plumping for a more glamorous and perhaps shallow alternative because – well, simply because it can.