Miami’s 2026 racing calendar begins with Formula E Miami E-Prix at Hard Rock
Just eight months after the FIA’s ABB Formula E World Championship zipped around Homestead-Miami Speedway, the open-wheel electric racer Miami E-Prix returns, but at the opposite end of Miami-Dade County.
The series that packs qualifying and the race into one day; hundreds of passes into each race; and each race usually into 70-75 minutes runs this weekend at Miami Gardens’ Hard Rock Stadium. Or, by proper name, the Miami International Autodrome’s Miami Loop circuit will host Friday’s practice and Saturday’s qualifying and race.
That’s not the Autodrome course used for Part 2 of Miami’s motorsports hat trick, May’s Formula 1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix. This course differs from the 2025 Miami E-Prix track at Homestead, where NASCAR’s Championship Weekend will run on the oval in November.
Here are a few things to know about the third race in the current 2025-26 Formula E season.
READ MORE: A Miami Olympic gold medalist and a Formula E champion talk about speed
When do things happen that fans can watch?
Everything for fans happens on Saturday.
Gates open at 7 a.m. Practice runs from 7:30 to 8:10 a.m. Qualifying is from 9:40 to 11 a.m. Between qualifying and the race are a driver autograph session (11:35 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.) and a concert with reggaeton and Latin pop performer Farruko (noon to 12:45 p.m.). The race starts at 2 p.m.
Grandstand ($81), Trackside Terrace ($159) and general admission ($40) tickets are available.
Changing course
Formula E management and drivers would love returning to downtown Miami, where the series raced in 2015. Downtown condo owner NIMBY probably means you’ll sooner see the New York Jets returning to the Super Bowl.
General feeling after last year’s return to Miami at Homestead: too much. Too much distance from population centers. Too much grandstand to fill. Too much track.
Andretti Racing’s Jake Dennis said, “I think over one lap, it was a really nice circuit for Formula E. But, the racing was probably on the extreme side of energy saving and management. It was a lot of lifting, which creates a lot of artificial racing. Homestead was probably a little too big for us. Some of the straights were rather long.”
So, the Miami E-Prix switches from one of 2025’s longest Formula E tracks (2.2 miles, 3.551 km) to one of the shortest (1.4 miles, 2.32 km).
“The last time I raced at a track that was less than a minute for a lap time was in go-karts, over 20 years ago,” chuckled Jaquar TCS Racing’s Antonio Felix Da Costa. “Everybody will be within a couple of tenths [of a second]. Although the track is short, it’s very technical. There’s lot of curb riding we need to be cautious about. How we set up the car to run over those curbs will have an effect.”
Nuts and bolts about cars and rules
After two races, Citroen Racing’s Nick Cassidy leads the points after his win in Mexico City. Dennis, the winner in Sao Paulo season opener, sits in second ahead of last year’s series champion, Nissan’s Oliver Rowland, in third.
This season also functions as the farewell tour for Formula E’s Gen 3 EVO car, which will give way to the 50% more powerful Gen 4 car next year. In Attack Mode, the Gen 3 car goes from 300 kilowatts of power to 350 and becomes a four-wheel drive car.
Driver’s don’t have to use all of their allotted eight minutes of Attack Mode. Before this season, drivers got penalized for leaving Attack Mode on the plate. In last year’s Miami E-Prix, Nissan’s Norman Nato blew by leader TAG Heuer Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein off the last corner. Wehrlein wound up with the win, however, after Nato got penalized for leftover Attack Mode.
“It’s just removed any potential weird scenarios like we had in Homestead last year, where half the field finished with Attack Mode and half got excluded, which no one wants to see,” Dennis said. “It’s confusing for the fans and confusing for the drivers (to figure out) what’s going on. It took far too long to explain to the public what happened.”
This story was originally published January 29, 2026 at 3:32 PM.
