Miami heat builds for F1's party that every sport craves

Demographics show fans flocking to Florida are younger and more diverse as the show pulls in the numbers

- Giles Richards

With a sellout once more expected, this weekend's Miami Grand Prix is building on an appeal to a younger, diverse audience that is a key part of Formula One's burgeoning success in the US. Making its mark on the calendar with a grand, spectacular party in the Florida sunshine since the inaugural race in 2022, Miami is considered something of a showcase.

The opening blast of the three meetings now held in the US is a shop window for the sport with three teams, Racing Bulls, Sauber and Ferrari boasting special liveries for the event this weekend. The flamingo pink of the RB is very much making a splash but the clunky corporate blue addition to the Scuderia's scarlet has fallen very flat with fans.

Naysayers may have disliked Miami's emphasis on being a show, of presenting a weekend of entertainment where the food and beverages (or F&B as it is bafflingly, for the uninitiated, referred to here) were as fundamental as the racing. Where the atmosphere went hand in hand with the competition. It was perhaps the first of the "event" races F1 wanted to promote and like it or not, it has succeeded with numbers around this race telling their own story.