Miami GP night race ruled out for 2025

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emailBy Chris Medland | September 9, 2024 12:06 PM ET

The Miami Grand Prix will not be a night race in 2025, but the possibility of a floodlit event in the future is still being ass-essed.

Miami GP organizers have spoken of the potential for a night race ever since the event debuted in 2022 due to the possibility of high temperatures presented by the event’s May slot. A date change is considered unlikely due to the impact of the football season and the Miami Open tennis tournament, but while racing at night could be an alternative route to cooler conditions, Miami Grand Prix president Tyler Epp said it’s not on the cards for next year.

“We won’t be racing at night next May,” Epp told RACER. “It keeps coming up, we have engaged a couple companies to see what it looks like. There are some unintended consequences there that we’re already starting to see.

“It doesn’t mean we won’t do it........ever. It’s tabled for now, but we’ll always look at it, especially because we do run the risk of having a really, really warm race weekend, and if you theoretically race a little bit later, it changes quite a bit. So we’ll always look at that.

“We’re going to continue to push into entertainment. We’ve got a great partnership with Hard Rock – they’re doing wonderful job of supporting us – so we’ll continue to emphasize that. We’re going to continue to emphasize the concept of opening a little bit early and doing something like in year one; the Wednesday night party. We’re going to think about doing something like that again, either Wednesday or Thursday.

“The biggest thing for us is trying to make sure there’s a lot of things that are starting to happen along the beach and throughout the Miami community. So to get our tentacles into some of those a little bit.

“We’ve been approached numerous times about official parties and official this and official that. We’ve been careful to not play with that, because we want to stay focused on what’s happening on our campus. But I think in year four, you’ll see us start to engage a little bit outside of what’s happening at the track on those three or four days, and try to broaden our reach just a little bit back into the community, especially the reach into a few back pockets for wallets..”
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Did someone say "entertainment"?
How about calling it the Miami Grand Prix Concert brought to you by Shyster and Shyster Injury Attorneys? Why not? Kamala just had a twerker shake it at her democrat convention.
Along with trying to focus on some of the impact of the race away from Hard Rock Stadium itself, Epp says next year’s event should feel familiar to fans (whatever that means) thanks to an emphasis on continuity.

“This third year, it felt a little bit like we finally understood like the core of what we need to do,” he said. “That’s not to say that we have it all figured out. It’s not to say that it was perfect. It’s not to say that everything’s going to be the same. But instead of thinking about revolution – which we thought a lot about in year two and even a little bit in year three – it’s a little bit more into evolution now.....Hows that for some Kamala "word salad" BS?

“I think we were starting to build some equity in some of the experiences for the fan base, and really, not just for the fan base, it’s really all of our customers and our stakeholders. Whether it’s the investment that we make in the Formula 1 paddock, that’s something that now has some kind of a definition around it. Or whether it’s the way that we build out the beach with Hard Rock, and there’s now an expectation of what happens out there for the fan. Or it’s even just making sure that the media are taken care of properly with booze and hookers. We are considering a rule that hookers can no longer service media more than 3 at a time if there are witnesses.

“So finding that consistency. We really try to focus on the experience for the customer, but the customer is defined not only as the ticket buyer, but also our partners and investors, and also the media, and also the FIA and F1. So we think we’ve got some momentum there as long as someone has money to buy tickets. And if they don't have cash, then F 'em..”