Miami planning F1 Live event in October

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Formula 1 is to hold a special 'F1 Live' event in the city of Miami next month in a bid to rally support for its plans to hold a Grand Prix street race in the city.

The F1 Miami Festival would be similar to the events held in London last year and in Marseilles during this year's French Grand Prix weekend. The four-day fan festival would get underway on October 17.

"We are having a festival in Miami and we are finalising all of the details. We don't have the details yet but, like Marseille, there is a car run," an F1 spokesman confirmed.

An estimated 100,000 people attended the 2017 event in London which was centred on Trafalgar Square and saw cars making speed runs up and down Whitehall.

The Independent newspaper says that in Miami, a 690m stretch of Biscayne Boulevard would be closed off to allow Formula 1 cars to make demonstration runs, finishing off with a special area to carry out crowd-pleasing donuts.

Not every team would take part in the demonstration, but all are expected to be at the festrival which will include a display of supercars. There will also be a giant screen so that people can watch track action from the United States Grand Prix, being held over the weekend at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

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Biscayne Boulevard is a key part of the proposed circuit for the Miami GP, which is still trying to gain approval through the local municipal authorities. Bayfront Park - which has been tapped as the future setting for pit lane - would be one of the main locations for the festival.

Although backed by the mayor, plans for a Miami GP have met stiff resistance from opposition politicians and from local residents fearing the disruption and cost of staging a Formula 1 event.

The mayor had been due to go to Singapore next weekend on a fact-finding mission in support of the city's bid to hold a race in 2020, but he's now cancelled those plans and won't be attending.

Even the F1 Live event is meeting with resistance.

"It will close the park for about three weeks," complained Andres Althabe, president of the Biscayne Neighborhoods Association. "The purpose is obviously to gain support from residents."

"Was there any approval of this event by the City Commission?" asked Itai Benosh, Treasurer of the Biscayne Condominium Association. "Can anyone just decide to close Biscayne Blvd for a high-speed race? Under what authority is the city allowing it?"

Despite the local opposition, approval for the proposed 2.6-mile street circuit from the Florida Department of Transportation and the Port Miami local authority is described as a "mere formality".

F1's new American owner Liberty has made a second US-based event a priority. It is likely to waive the hosting fee and take on the role of promoter itself in partnership with the owner of the NFL franchise Miami Dolphins in order to fast track the race onto the calendar.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.