MIAMI — The T-shirts with matching photos and Charles Leclerc quotes gave away which Formula One driver the four young women were supporting.
A picture of a young Leclerc from his go-karting days, taken from a video where he is talking about a clash in a race with Max Verstappen and declaring “just an inchident,” has become a very popular meme in the F1 world.
So when Claudia, Sofia, Lucia and Alexandra wanted to come up with a fun idea for what to wear to Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium track, tapping into the humor immediately came to mind.
“We created and designed it,” explained Claudia. “We thought it would be funny and unique.”
Each year, the group attends the race in their home city. A lot of their F1 content is consumed through social media, often posted by influencers, and they love to follow the partners of the drivers, too.
They’re part of the shift within F1’s fanbase that has occurred over recent years. It has become younger and more female. It is a noticeable change that can be seen across all F1 events, but particularly those on American soil amid the sport’s recent popularity boom here. It makes Miami, the first of the three United States races to take place each year, an important temperature check.
But if October’s United States Grand Prix is more angled toward the ‘traditional’ racing fan, taking place on a permanent race circuit on the outskirts of Austin, and the Las Vegas Grand Prix has become the glitzy glamour race along the Strip, then who are the fans coming to Miami?
“I think there’s a wide array,” Zach Williams, the general manager of Hard Rock Stadium, told The Athletic. “We’ve got a big section of fans that are just die-hard F1 fans. They come out to make sure that they’re seeing all on-track activity, no matter what it is.
“And then we’ve got the Miami general fan that kind of shows up at every event to experience what’s going on around the venue, which is why we have so many different things happening.”
In the lead-up to sprint qualifying for this year’s race on Friday evening, The Athletic met a range of fans, from those who have attended every year to those at their first grand prix. One group, who declined to be quoted for the article, admitted they weren’t F1 fans but had been given tickets by a friend and just wanted to check the event out.
Miami native Nikki Vitale, a lifelong Ferrari fan who adored Michael Schumacher, has been to the race every year since its debut in 2022, having previously gone to the Austin race.
“I’ve been to Austin, but Miami is Miami,” she said. “Austin has amazing food. That’s great, I think the venue is super well-organized. It’s hills and it’s a different environment. But Miami? Come on, you cannot beat Miami. It’s the vibe in Miami.”
Mason, a Verstappen fan, also attended Austin races in the late 2010s, but is attending his first Miami Grand Prix this year. “It’s a totally different environment,” he said. “To be able to be standing in a big football stadium like this right now and watching the race is totally different to anything I’ve experienced before.
“Just the vibe around the race is different. A lot more laid back, it feels like.”
Unlike many other F1 tracks, Miami offers direct views from the fan areas into the paddock, which is located on the pitch in the middle of the Hard Rock Stadium. Ahead of sprint qualifying, Nick and Ishani were trying to see if they could spot any F1 drivers or team principals coming out of the hospitality units, from their vantage point on the stadium’s upper level.
This isn’t just their first F1 race in Miami, but their first F1 race ever. Nick said they decided to attend “on a whim” after completing their finals at Duke. “We’ve been casual watchers for the past two years,” added Ishani, who pointed toward the paddock. “This is crazy!”
According to Tyler Epp, the president of the Miami Grand Prix, the split between male and female fans in Miami is 60/40. “What we’re starting to see is our female demographic tends to be a bit younger than the male demographic,” Epp said.
He explained that the different demands from fans and the experience they want from their weekend have prompted race organizers to put together 34 different types of ticket packages. These range from single-day general admission tickets – one-day tickets were a new offering for 2024 in response to fan feedback – to higher-end hospitality options.
Epp also said there had been greater outreach to more community groups this year, following the lead of the Miami Dolphins. This includes offering tickets to churches, youth groups and sports clubs, as well as bringing these groups to visit the track. The added initiatives, along with the traditional individual buyers, helped Miami do “a significant amount of revenue, bringing new people to the racetrack in groups,” Epp said.
The pricing of tickets in Miami has been a point of criticism in the past, particularly in the first year of the race when a Sunday general admission pass was selling for $500. For this year, the same campus pass costs $350 or $430 for three days.
“We’re not trying to sell off price, we’re trying to offer value,” Epp said. “And at the end of the day, the consumer makes that decision and we will listen to them and make sure that we’re getting the value.”
Ishani admitted the pricing was “more intense than most sports, but I feel like I’m not complaining too much, because there’s so much going on. It’s definitely on the pricier end, but worth it.”
“Miami is expensive,” added Nikki. “But Miami is Miami. It’s a great destination, so you’re getting not only the F1 experience, but you’re getting the experience of Miami.”
Epp said the data available to the Miami Grand Prix organizers showed around 70 percent of the tickets sold for the race were registered to addresses in Florida, and that 80 percent of that total was from the greater South Florida area.
“That gives us hope that we’re actually building a base here,” he said, noting the existing car culture within Miami. Epp said the race also had strong interest from fans up the East Coast, as well as from Central and South America.
The race continues to evolve each year, making changes based on fan feedback. Regarding the single-day ticket additions, Epp said this move was drawn from conclusions stemming from focus groups and fan surveys, and that these days 81 percent of the Sunday single-day ticket buyers were first-time attendees. Epp added that it “makes me think there’s an opportunity here to crack open a whole new market and let people see this and touch it and feel it in a way that we haven’t done before.”
But the fan feedback has extended to the concessions offerings as well.
Williams said data-driven technology showed the race organizers where the sales were happening, and with the campus being mostly temporary structures they had the flexibility to make necessary changes to better the fan experience.
For instance, after organizers noticed several spaces becoming busier with the sprint race addition in 2024 compared to the two previous years, they moved some of the favorite food items to those areas. This included the area known as the 300-level at the top of the stadium, which has a 360-degree view of the site. But being involved in the community also has informed changes.
“The benefit of being a year-round building and (hosting) football and tennis and concerts and all the things that we do, is that we work with chefs at different restaurants all year long,” Williams explained. “So, we can get a real good feel for who’s really good at executing in a smaller environment — like maybe (from) a concert that’s a shorter window — and who has the ability to come in and scale up to do something that we do for Formula One.”
Hard Rock Stadium has become an entertainment destination over the years, attracting a variety of fans, and that has helped prepare for a diverse and eclectic F1 fanbase. The stadium goes from hosting the University of Miami and Miami Dolphins football games in the fall to the Miami Open tennis and Miami Grand Prix in the spring, with the latter two events held roughly a month apart. Tennis’ international clientele helps set the tone for F1’s arrival.
“University of Miami is very much a college game. And people come in and they want to grab a beer, a burger, a hot dog and tailgate, and do that kind of stuff. Dolphins is much more professional. It’s a little bit more elevated. We’ve got some more luxury experiences there for the guests that want to really enjoy that aspect of it,” Williams explained. “And then you get into tennis.
“Then we start with the international crowd and kind of a different feel. We go into smaller bites and more international types of food. A little bit more refined, for lack of a better term. It’s just a little different feel, because you’re there all day for tennis versus just there for a couple hours for a football game. And then you get into grand prix and it’s kind of tennis expanded (in) a multitude of different ways.
“There’s all of these different experiences. From the regular GA guest that just wants to come in and experience the race and grab a quick snack and a drink and get to their space, or the international guest that’s flown across the ocean to get here and wants to have this big Miami experience and see the different things that are available to them.”
The effort to serve the fanbase has also extended to the teams. Since Monday, the Williams squad has been running a fanzone in the city where fans can see show cars, try simulator rigs and attend events with personalities, such as driver Alex Albon and team principal James Vowles, all free of charge.
Aidan Lyon, the team’s fan engagement chief, said the fanzones were mainly attended by younger fans between the ages of 18 and 25 and that it was “definitely more female”.
“If you came to see the audience with Alex (Albon),” Lyon added, “I would say the first five deep (rows of) people were all female.”
Lyon feels the fanzones are an important step for Williams to get closer to markets across the world, but also believes there is still a lot of untapped potential in the United States. “(The audience has) kept growing consistently over the last four years since I’ve been involved,” Lyon said. “They’re the number one in size, number one engagement, number one in commerce purchases. So I don’t think this audience is going anywhere.”
And Miami serves as further indication to F1 that the growth of the sport’s female fanbase is showing zero sign of slowing down.
Alexandra, who wore one of the Leclerc T-shirts, mentioned how excited she was to see F1 Academy, the all-women racing series, take place in Miami and visit that championship’s paddock, which is more accessible than F1. For most of the event, fans with tickets that allow access can walk to the temporary garages holding these cars, whereas the F1 equivalent area is off limits to almost everyone except teams and VIPs.
“I like how you can visit the different garages and the cars,” she said. “We’ve watched Formula One since we were really young, and when we were younger, there was no F1 Academy. It was always male dominated. Now, it’s more female.”
Nikki noted the same change in the grandstands. “It lets you know that F1 is not a man’s race, it’s for everybody,” she said. “I was out on my grandstand and I saw a little girl with a sign, and you could see her face like, ‘oh my God!’ and she was just seeing a car pass by. It was amazing.”
(Top image: Jeff Robinson / Icon Sportswire / Getty Images)
