Will F1’s all-American gamble pay off?

MIAMI — How in the world did the world’s most prestigious racing series arrive here? Not here as in Miami, but rather here as in this moment in time?

Formula One’s former boss once said he didn’t believe his series needed the United States. Meanwhile, the U.S. motorsports community and its massive fan base always seemed to get along just fine without F1. The U.S. spent eight years each in the 1980s and ’90s without a stateside event, then once it returned, it seemed perfectly content with one-and-done weekends each season, either sandwiched in between IndyCar and NASCAR at Indianapolis Motor Speedway or held in Austin during a Texas Longhorns football away weekend. American-born drivers seemingly were always looked down upon by the old-school, Eurocentric F1 paddock. Those same racers accused those same Europeans of rigging the system against them, you know, like a formula.

The point is, Formula One and the United States were always like a pair of magnets turned the wrong way and pushed together. Like a round piston in a square block. Like synthetic oil and perfectly chilled Fuji water. Like Kimi Raikkonen and smiling. They just didn’t go together. American F1 fans were considered a fervent but niche group. The races were something to watch before Sunday brunch in the summertime, with no football pregame shows to watch instead. The cars and drivers and sponsors, they all felt so, well, distant.

Yet here we are, with seemingly every celebrity you’ve ever heard of jetting their way to South Beach for the weekend. Why? To witness the inaugural Miami Grand Prix (2 p.m. ET Sunday, ABC). To gaze upon a sparkling, pastel-painted 3.363-mile, 19-turn race circuit fancily titled the Miami International Autodrome, all wining and dining in the fake yacht marinas and pop-up hospitality areas that have risen around a stadium used for NFL games, watching as racers across all genres and global borders embrace in a three-day group hug, aglow in the petrol-laced sunshine of South…