Miami Grand Prix placed on the back burner

PLANS for a new Formula One race in Miami are on hold at least until 2020.

The racing series had hoped to stage a Miami Grand Prix next year but announced yesterday that negotiations have taken too long to get it on to the racing calendar.

While calling negotiations “complicated,” F1 managing director for commercial operations Sean Bratches said the series was committed to keep trying to stage a Miami race in 2020.

Formula One’s American ownership group, Liberty Media, wants to grow the series in the US. F1 has three races in North America in Austin, Texas, Montreal and Mexico City. The Miami race has been proposed as a street course, which led to concerns from some locals that it would disrupt neighbourhoods.

“We have always said that we wouldn’t compromise on delivering the best possible race,” Bratches said. “If that meant waiting until 2020, then that was far more preferable than signing off on a sub-optimal racetrack, just to do a deal.”

The Florida race is supported by Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross.

F1 races in cities across the globe but left the US from 2008-2012. It returned with the US Grand Prix in Texas at the Circuit of the Americas, a $300 million facility built specifically for F1. A Miami street race would be the first F1 street race in the US since 1991 in Phoenix.