Why the Miami GP is a vital test for F1's new world

A grand prix on the streets of Miami in October 2019 will be huge news for Formula 1 and a massive boost for Liberty Media. It would mean the championship's new owner will have delivered on something it's been promising since it came on board.

Liberty cannot afford Miami to fall through, especially after taking the unusual step of putting out a press statement last week in which commercial boss Sean Bratches said he hoped "to bring this vision to life". Indeed, the event is already behind schedule - in a January proposal F1 stated that it expected to make an announcement in April.

The suggestion is that the Miami Grand Prix will not follow the traditional sanction-fee model that Bernie Ecclestone created, and that there will be a form of partnership with F1 and the local promoter working together and spreading the risk. Some have even described it as a 'free' deal - a privilege hitherto enjoyed only by the special case that is Monaco, always treated by Ecclestone as a loss leader.

Intriguingly, one document produced by F1 notes that "following Miami guidance, an atypical commercial model is being developed to enable the race to take place". That makes sense if you accept how important the event is to Liberty.

Unless another announcement pips it to the post, Miami will be the first new race to be signed up in the post-Ecclestone era. France and Germany returned to the 2018 schedule via existing contracts, and hitherto Liberty's main calendar achievement has been to extend long-standing deals with the likes of Singapore and China.

Meanwhile there's been a lot of talk about potential new venues, with Copenhagen, Buenos Aires and Hanoi among the serious contenders. The pressure was on Chase Carey and his colleagues to come up with a firm deal.

For their first newly-minted race to be a street event in glamorous Miami, set against the backdrop of the city's port and skyline of endless apartment blocks, would be a major coup. And the planned 10-year contract will be a significant calling card as Liberty tries to shape the future of F1, and specifically tries to grow it in the United States - the market that grand prix racing's new bosses know best.

From the start Carey made no secret of his desire to add races, and potentially extend the calendar to 25 weekends. He's wanted to have at least one extra race in the USA to back up Austin, and the target has always been a street event in an appealing "destination city", with Miami high on the wish list.

"We have been very clear from probably the day we came in about our goals and ambitions to grow the sport in the US, and grow the sport also in Asia," Carey said in Spain last week. "And we have actually been pretty clear on one of the key components being adding a race initially in a city.

"We are very proud of the race we have in Texas, but we have talked about destination cities, and I guess the three we've thrown out most often have been New York, Miami and Las Vegas. So it fits with what we've been talking about.

There's been a lot of talk about potential new venues but the pressure was on Chase Carey and his colleagues to come up with a firm deal

"There are obviously steps we have to go through, we are engaged with other cities in the US, but we think Miami would be a wonderful city to host a race.

"We are working through the process to determine if that is something we can put together with the city in a way that works for both of us."

F1 has a head start in Miami that it wouldn't have enjoyed elsewhere, as there is an established tradition of street racing in the very Bayfront Park area that's been earmarked for the new track.

The original Miami GP IMSA race was promoted by the late Ralph Sanchez between 1983 and '94, although after the first three years local development meant that the bulk of the track moved a few blocks north. The last event on that site, in '95, was a one-off CART/Indycar race won by Jacques Villeneuve.

From 1996 Sanchez turned his attention to his new track, Homestead Speedway, but without his support a rival CART/Champ Car event returned to the Bayfront area in 2002 and '03. Then in '15 there was a Formula E event. Although the course was much shorter, like the proposed F1 track it skirted around the American Airlines Arena, which is home to the Miami Heat NBA team and very much the focal point of the area.

That history, and specifically the fact that the current political incumbents were closely involved in the running of the FE race just three years ago, has made it much easier for the F1 plans to progress through the system.

The link man between Liberty and Miami is the event's intended promoter, property billionaire Stephen Ross. As the owner of the Miami Dolphins NFL franchise he's one of the biggest players in town - and someone who has the ear of local government.

He's the owner of RSE Ventures, an investment company whose sporting interests include the International Champions Cup soccer tournament, which has attracted top European clubs including Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Chelsea, Juventus, Bayern Munich and PSG. Coincidentally, the contest is backed by major F1 sponsor Heineken.

Ross also owns handheld-device broadcaster FanVision, which had an F1 deal with Ecclestone that ran from 2008-12, and which has now returned - under the name F1 Vision - in a new joint venture this year.

In another twist Ross was linked to a Qatari consortium that was considering a purchase of F1 in the summer of 2015, over a year before the Liberty deal was done. Ecclestone met legions of tyre-kickers over the years, but he made it clear that he had a lot of respect for Ross.

"Lots of people have made approaches," Ecclestone said at the time. "He's a proper guy, he's a sporting guy, from a business point of view."

That deal didn't happen but despite missing out, Ross is now working with Liberty and he's a hugely powerful partner to have on board.

The first step will be made on Thursday when plans will be discussed and voted upon by the City Commission. It's a regularly scheduled meeting, and the F1 event is likely to take up just a few minutes of what will be a full day of routine civic business.

The starting point is a resolution that supports the race, sponsored by Mayor Francis Suarez and three of the five city commissioners, each of whom represents a district. The commissioners (but not the mayor) will vote. Given that only three are required to back the resolution, and that three have sponsored it, this step looks like being a formality.

If passed, the resolution will give permission for City Manager Emilio Gonzalez - a former US Army colonel who worked for George W Bush on homeland security and until recently was the boss of Miami International Airport - to set in motion the hugely complex paperwork trail that would allow a race to take place.

Gonzalez will then come back with the final contracts, in the form of a Host City Agreement, which will then go to approval, with a majority of four votes required. A deadline of July 1 has been put in place for that to happen.

The backing of Mayor Suarez is essential. A 40-year-old lawyer who was elected only last November, he's keen to make his mark and bring big events to the city, and he's fully behind the F1 plans. The Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce has also expressed support in writing.

Of course, it's not quite as simple as that, and there is still time for objections to be heard. An organisation called the Miami Downtown Neighbors Alliance has already been in touch with the commissioners - understandable given that the track runs through a residential area - while more mysteriously a petition from a conservative lobby group called the Better Florida Alliance, which aggressively opposes the race, has appeared online.

Incidentally, the word is that NASCAR isn't happy about the prospect of an F1 grand prix taking place just a few weeks ahead of its traditional mid-November season-closer at Homestead, a track owned and managed by its sister company, ISC. When asked if the venue was opposed to the race, Homestead issued a firm "no comment".

So what's in it for Miami and how will the politicians justify their support? There's hardly a shortage of major sports in town, given that the city has a complete set of NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB teams (in contrast, Austin only has university sport), while Suarez has recently helped to land his city an MLS outfit, via David Beckham. The Super Bowl is coming to Florida in 2020. But an annual F1 grand prix will be different, thanks to its global audience and appeal.

As with all other races backed by city or national governments - and these days that means nearly all of them - there are obvious PR benefits. F1 has made a good sales pitch and the resolution that will be presented on Thursday is essentially a summary of those gains. It reads in part as follows:

"F1 delivers significant economic benefit to its host locations; the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas delivered $2.8billion of total economic benefit to the Austin, Texas metro area between 2012 and 2015.

"Formula 1 generates a material uplift in tourism activity and in 2017, on average over 200,000 people attended each Formula 1 Grand Prix race weekend, including a large number of international visitors.

"Although each race requires certain specialised trades, the event will provide the city with year round and race week employment, as well as volunteer opportunities, to provide racing enthusiasts with not only the racing event they have come to expect, but the opportunity to share in the experience.

"Hosting an F1 race provides a global platform to demonstrate the talent of the local community and to promote the city's facilities.

"The city has a rich history of hosting races in downtown Miami, with this event tracking Biscayne Boulevard and Port Miami, providing for minimal road closures and racing sessions that customarily last approximately one and a half hours each."

Those bullet points present a good case for the race, although the suggestion that the streets might be closed only for the length of a practice session is a trifle optimistic...

More detail is contained in an appendix to the resolution, which sets out in precise legal language the obligations of the F1 organisation on the one hand, and the city on the other.

This document provides a fascinating insight into what a grand prix offers a host city, with some of the key commitments of the F1 organisation including the following:

"To refer to the event as the 'Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix' in media and promotional materials and to include significant television-visible trackside branding promoting the city of Miami.

"To ensure that the event is broadcast live, both domestically and internationally, with frequent aerial shots of the downtown Miami metropolitan area and periodic references to 'Miami' as the location of the event during such broadcast.

"To host a fan festival each year, during the term and within the city Limits, to promote and publicise the event.

"To provide meaningful internship and vocational opportunities to local students in connection with each event."

There's much for Miami to gain. But what of the cost? Even if all the approvals are signed off, it will still not be a done deal. The New Jersey race jumped all the hurdles and even made it onto the provisional 2013 F1 calendar, but in the end the money wasn't there and it faded away.

The appendix makes clear what the city has promised to deliver. Firstly there is permission to use "city-owned lands" for the circuit, plus the provision of the necessary "consents, approvals, permits and entitlements", and help with providing the same from "other government and quasi-governmental agencies and entities (eg, Miami-Dade County, Florida Department of Transportation, PortMiami, public utilities, etc)".

The city will also commit to providing "value-in-kind services", namely civil works, police and fire personnel, support for customs clearances, permit fee waivers - and not forgetting solid waste management services!

"They stopped the Formula E because it was too much trouble. And they have enough things going on in Miami, it's not like nobody's heard of Miami" Bernie Ecclestone

Obviously there's some cost related to providing all of the above, but there's no reference in the documents that we've seen so far to the city contributing hard cash towards the running of the race.

Austin was different in that the venue was built privately on land outside the city. Yet still the only way the grand prix could happen was with public money from the Texas State Major Events Trust Fund in effect paying the F1 sanctioning fee, somewhat controversially in the eyes of locals.

So will Miami make a direct financial contribution to make the event happen? Like many US cities it has subsidised venues to keep major league teams in town, so putting funds into an international event is not impossible.

It's hard to imagine that an entrepreneur as canny as Ross will commit to 10 years of hefty and ever increasing sanctioning fees and rely solely on ticket sales to make the business pay - even if handed use of the city streets as a venue for free - which is why the aforementioned notion of a "free deal", or risk sharing with F1, makes sense.

Nobody knows how money talks better than Ecclestone, and over the years he worked hard to make a Miami F1 race happen, without success.

"All these things, it's all a case of 'how much?'," he said last month. "Not only did we try to do things in Miami, I even got the guy [Sanchez], who was a good friend of mine, to build the [permanent] circuit in Miami. He eventually did it at Homestead or somewhere, but it never really worked.

"And when I was trying to do the street race, and we more or less got it on board, it was going across to the island and back again. And everybody looked at it and thought, 'Christ, it's going to cost a fortune, and it's going to disrupt the place'."

He remains a little sceptical: "They had the Formula E and they stopped it, because it was too much trouble. And they have enough things going on in Miami, it's not like nobody's heard of Miami."