Dolphins announce new Formula One track and schedule as residents fight race plans

Hoping to defuse a fight to kill Formula 1’s arrival at Hard Rock Stadium, the Miami Dolphins have unveiled a new track design and schedule for the auto race that would drop a county roadway from the route and avoid overlap with local school times.

On Tuesday, the Dolphins’ press office released the new rendering of the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix race scheduled to arrive at Hard Rock Stadium in May 2021 and return each year after that. The new plans arrived hours before Miami-Dade commissioners were set to vote on anti-F1 legislation sponsored by a leading opponent of the race, Commissioner Barbara Jordan. Commissioners voted on Wednesday to delay deciding on the ordinance until the Feb. 4 meeting, keeping the issue alive for the arrival of Super Bowl 54 at Hard Rock.

Residents opposing the event call it a nuisance, bringing excessive noise and air pollution to a city that’s already regularly exposed to the disruption that comes with an NFL stadium that’s increasingly adding events to its calendar, such as April’s two-week Miami Open tennis tournament. The Dolphins, joined by the administration of Mayor Carlos Gimenez, reject claims of health concerns related to F1 cars’ exhaust and engine noise and call the race a welcome boon to the local economy.

“The Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix is another example of a world-class event coming to our region,” Dolphins CEO Tom Garfinkel said in a statement announcing the race changes.

The revised course drops Northwest 199th Street from the race layout, eliminating the need to close the public road for the event. A Dolphins spokesman said dropping 199th Street from the course means no public roads would be used for the race, and regular traffic would flow around the stadium in the same way it does for NFL games and concerts.

The announcement also said Formula One would delay practice races the Friday before the main event “in order to ensure that there isn’t any disruption to local schools.”

Combined, the announcement represents the first significant retreat from the original “F1” plans since Dolphins owner Stephen Ross backed off his original effort to run the race in downtown Miami this year. While the stadium’s customized zoning rules allow for running auto races there, the county ordinance that was deferred Wednesday would subject those races to city approval. The Dolphins could appeal a rejection by Miami Gardens to the County Commission.

“Don’t bring the race into our bedroom community,” Jordan, the county commissioner representing Miami Gardens, told a town hall last week. “We don’t want it.”

Sam Dubbin, a lawyer representing homeowners associations surrounding the stadium, called the announcement “very unfortunate gamesmanship” that “does nothing to address the most serious impact of the race.” He pointed to concerns about hearing damage for children and the elderly living nearby.

Karen Hunter Jackson, a Miami Gardens resident helping organize opposition to the race, said Tuesday the changes would not end community efforts to block the event.

Dropping “199th Street is irrelevant. It’s the entire area that will suffer,” she said. “As long as it’s in our community where there are homes and people, it’s a problem.”

This story was originally published January 21, 2020 at 3:59 PM.