Why first year loss hasn’t dented Miami F1 boss’ outlook

Tom Garfinkel, the managing partner of Miami’s new F1 event, had originally targeted making a profit from the off with his race around the Miami Dolphins stadium.

But higher than anticipated costs pushed the inaugural Miami GP into a loss.

However, he says there are no regrets about the extra expenditure that was done to ensure fans had as good a time as possible, and he thinks there will be a longer-term payoff that will bring bigger financial returns in the future.

“If you would have asked me six months ago, I would have expected this to make money based on where the revenues were headed,” said Garfinkel about the sell-out event.

“But based on where the expenses headed, we’re not going to make one this year. However, it was very important for us to deliver a great event.

“The expenses far exceeded our expectations, but it was because we were trying to do everything we could first class to be on brand for what F1 is and the kind of event we wanted to deliver.”

Garfinkel says one example of where extra money was spent was in turfing much of the Hard Rock Stadium’s car park to make it a better environment for spectators.

“I think a lot of races you go to, for example, if you go behind the grandstand it might be just black top [asphalt], where the bathrooms and the concessions are.

“But the grandstands out at the Beach Club, there’s turf everywhere. That serves a lot of purposes. Number one, black top is hot, and the turf makes it cooler for people. It just looks cleaner, it looks nicer.

“It’s expensive to put, whatever it is, 30 acres of turf out there. But we want to do things right. So we’ll continue to try to do things like that.”

While one way to improve the balance sheet would be to dramatically increase the number of tickets on sale, Garfinkel said he was mindful about getting too many people through the door if it compromised the experience.

“We certainly had demand to sell a lot more tickets, but I want to get people in and out…