MIAMI — In the hours before the Miami Grand Prix, Formula One’s paddock was teeming with VIPs, sport stars and celebrities.
Everywhere you looked, famous faces emerged from the crowd. Tom Brady crossed paths with Michael Jordan in the Mercedes garage. David Beckham greeted the Williams sisters outside Red Bull. Pharrell Williams strolled in the direction of Ferrari. Michael Douglas emerged from Aston Martin. Shawn Mendes stood outside McLaren.
It was an atmosphere unlike any other in F1.
As each superstar moved around the paddock they attracted selfie hunters and camera crews in their orbit. The swelling entourages competed for space with sweating mechanics and impatient engineers as the sport quietly tried to operate around the show.
With the clock ticking closer to lights out at 3:30pm, the Miami International Autodrome felt like the centre of the sporting universe. This was F1’s long-awaited Super Bowl moment and its coming of age in America.
But could the main event ever live up to the hype?
In some ways it didn’t matter. Just bringing F1 to Miami in the first place was enough for the sport to cash in on its growing popularity in the United States. For much of the weekend the on-track action seemed like an afterthought.
“This event was spectacular,” Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said after the race. “The city has been totally hyped around Formula One all week. The fan support is great and honestly I have never been in a race that created such a buzz around Formula One and interest like Miami this time around.
“You can’t cross the paddock because there were so many people here and that’s good. We should be happy that we have such strong support.”
The 57-lap grand prix certainly wasn’t a classic, but it also wasn’t the anti-climax it could have been. Following a dramatic collision between Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly on lap 41, a late safety car period…
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