Miami Grand Prix experience (the “Heat Stroke F1”)

Formula 1 is an all-day three-day event. Consequently, a seat in a grandstand will become more like a prison after a while, unlike if you were attending a 2-hour game. In Las Vegas (see Nine minutes of Formula 1 glory at the Las Vegas Grand Prix) our ticket gave us access only to a small area where we could get food, use the waterless porta-potties, or walk to the grandstand. In Miami, a standard ticket gives the holder access to an entire campus (albeit only one grandstand) and thus there is a lot more to see and do. having the massive football stadium at the center of the campus is valuable because it is possible to ride an escalator up to the third floor of the stadium, walk around, see the track from above, eat from a non-temporary kitchen, use a non-temporary bathroom, etc. (Even the temporary rest room facilities in Miami, unlike in Vegas, were water-based and had water for handwashing.)

Despite my fears of being roasted and steamed to death, the weather forecast for the weekend was highs of 83 degrees and partly cloudy.

Given the inevitability of traffic and high-cost parking, the obvious way to get to the event is Lyft/Uber to the front door. However, it turns out that these services dump people a 20-minute walk from the stadium on big event days and may not be easy to find afterwards. I paid $84 for a resale Saturday-only parking ticket on the north side of the stadium, of which $25 was in SeatGeek fees:

I told my companion “I guarantee that, after parking, we will walk by businesses and individuals selling parking for less than half of what we paid.” Sure enough, the modest neighborhood to the north of the stadium had families selling driveway parking for $35-50 (see below). Lot 34 still ended up being a good choice because they open an exit at the NW corner. Although we left at the precise peak time, right after the final qualifying round, we didn’t wait to get out of the parking lot and suffered through no more than about 10 minutes of additional traffic compared to a best-case scenario.

It was a 20-minute walk to the entrance gate from Lot 34. If one were headed back toward Miami, probably the smart thing to do would be independent parking on the south side of the stadium (lots of businesses there with big lots) and, if departing at a peak time, stop at a restaurant for dinner before heading out on the road.

Security check (no bags or food allowed, basically, and we heard some vague mumbling about camera lenses no longer than 6 inches) and ticket check was quick. Bring in a sealed bottle of water and then there are free refill stations all over the venue. Also bring earplugs for the Porsche races and for the F1 qualifying (you can just put your fingers in your ears as the pack of cars goes by in an F1 race).

I was instructed to pick some drivers to root for. After hearing their biographies, I decided that my loyalties are to Logan Sargeant, a 23-year-old Floridian who drives for Williams, Yuki Tsunoda, a 23-year-old from Japan who drives for Red Bull’s second team (“RB”) because I love Japan, and Max Verstappen, the 26-year-old champion who reminds me of my Dutch friend Max (he’s against big government and low-skill migrants).

The “West Campus” features about 15 restaurants and a popular F1 merchandise store. People actually waited in line for the chance to buy $75-100 T-shirts:

The shopper in the middle photo told me that everything is cheaper online and, in fact, the orange T-shirt above for which people were paying $75 at the event was quoted at $42, not on sale, on the official F1 store web site. The $80 black shirt, however, wasn’t available online when I checked, so maybe that’s why people are desperate to shop at the event. The truly great hat shown below wasn’t for sale:

There was quite a bit of shaded seating for eating and drinking. My Twitter post, which nobody thought was funny:

Nearly 100,000 protesters have gathered for a second day here in the Miami encampment, which is complete with temporary restrooms and humanitarian food organizations. The demonstrators say that if their demands aren’t met they are coming back tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/T0ao56VvOC

— Philip Greenspun (@PhilipGreenspun) May 4, 2024

Here’s a view of the grandstand taken from the 3rd floor of the stadium:

Our Turn 18 grandstand seats ($180 resale plus a forest of fees) weren’t all that interesting. We never saw a change in position, an accident, or anything else other than people decelerate (far away) and then come slowly out of tight turn (close). Row M is the best in this grandstand due to being shaded and yet just in front of the columns that hold up the shade structure. Later in the day, at least six rows below M will also be shaded on the west side of the grandstand. Here are photos at noon showing that L and M are shaded followed by two photos at 4 pm showing that the west part of the grandstand has a much more favorable angle than the east part (by 2 pm, even row I was shaded on the west side):

The aviation story for the event is a temporary flight restriction from 0-1000′, which is perhaps just as well considering the proximity of 1050′-high towers right next to the stadium.

An AStar (“Airbus H130”) flew tight maneuvers, often substantially sideways, over the more important races. I’m surprised that this made more sense than using drones to get dramatic aerial footage of the race. A drone operator on top of the stadium would have been able to see the aircraft at all times and a camera operator could have manipulated the camera angle. Maybe the camera in the ball underneath the AStar can be heavier, but is a huge sensor and lens necessary for taking pictures under the bright Miami skies? A Robinson R44 also flew over the course from time to time and the Hard Rock’s Sikorsky S-76 ferried VIPs in and out. I’m sure the folks in the AStar got some better images that we did from our seats! iPhone at “3X”:

I’m not sure why Ferrari wants to participate in Formula 1. Isn’t the main take-away “A beverage company makes faster cars than we do and, also, quite a few cans of energy drinks”? Also, the Ferrari team is now sponsored by HP, which leads to a color clash and confusion in my brain. Why do tech companies get so much value out of F1 sponsorship? Shouldn’t it be consumer products companies that could get the most return on investment? How many people at a Formula 1 event are in the market for something from Oracle, Cisco, or HP? Who decides to use Oracle instead of SAP or SQL Server because Oracle sponsors the Red Bull team?

The restricted-by-gender-ID “F1 Academy” race was more exciting than the standard F1 open-to-all-genders events. The drivers all have the same car model and, therefore, nobody has a technical advantage. This makes it tougher to forecast the winner in advance. The lack of experience among the female-identifying drivers also makes the race more exciting. In the 13-lap race that we saw (drivers who fail to identify as “women” are forced to race for 19 laps (sprint) or 57 laps (full F1 race)), there were stalls during the start (failure to use manual transmission properly), sideways departures from the track in curves, and at least one crash against the side wall (nobody injured, fortunately). Despite the low level of experience among the drivers, big companies such as Cisco and Google pour in sponsorship money. The announcers give the drivers credit for every action, even if the action is a mistake, and note that “they’re learning so much.” Chloe Chambers, age 19 and born in China, was given credit for being adopted and also for living in a “multi-racial” family. Wikipedia says that in an all-gender Formula 4 contest she finished #26 (perhaps she was the top driver who identified as “female”?). Drivers who don’t identify as “female” at the Formula 4 level would be lucky to enjoy 100 spectators at an event, but the “F1 Academy” race was watched by tens of thousands, sandwiched as it was between all-gender F1 events.

The lines for food seem to get long from 1-3 pm as fan hunger overpowers resistance to paying $30 per person for lunch. Here’s the line for $23 personal-size pizza:

Frosted lemonade was $12, a burger $20, and tacos were $10 each. As noted above, the ability to walk around inside the stadium is valuable and offers fun views of racing and the fan zones:

Some car dealers brought their wares. Here’s a Koenigsegg:

Some porn for Californians from the drive back… gasoline at $3.46/gallon right next to the Palm Beach International Airport:

It was a good day and wasn’t too brutal for either sun or noise, but I wouldn’t have wanted to go back the next day for the real race (better to watch on TV). Although the crowds were managed well, it was still a crowded environment from the moment you left your car to the moment you got back. One day wasn’t quite long enough to explore all of the fan areas, but it was still enough for one year. Maybe I would feel differently if they used a Honda Odyssey as a pace car.

The Apple Watch’s summary of the event: