You’ve Probably Driven on Miami’s F1 Track

Walking in the footsteps of professional athletes is a time-honored dream for millions. Sports fantasy camps have been around for decades, and the video game industrial complex rakes in billions every year by giving regular folks the feeling of playing in professional arenas.

You might not know this, but for about $40, you can experience (a small fraction of) the thrill of Formula 1 racing by tooling around on the Miami International Autodrome course — the very same track where real-life F1 drivers compete each May.

The track, which opened in 2022, snakes around Hard Rock Stadium on three sides like a mangled horseshoe. So intimately conjoined are the two, in fact, that Hard Rock Stadium uses portions of the F1 track for parking during major events like international soccer matches and Miami Dolphins and University of Miami Hurricanes home games.

Many F1 tracks utilize public streets — Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne, Australia, the Monaco Grand Prix Circuit, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, and Baku City Circuit in Azerbaijan, to name several — and allow public access when they’re not set up for races. But South Florida’s track is a closed circuit that’s not part of the Miami-Dade County road grid.

Hard Rock’s 3.363-mile (5.412-kilometer) track, which features 19 corners, is one of only a few in the world that don’t offer public “track days,” occasions when fans can pay to drive their cars on all or parts of the circuit. Prices for those events range from $200 for a single lap to thousands of dollars for an all-day experience.

But as a matter of course (pun intended), sports fans who attend events at Hard Rock Stadium are directed to drive on a portion of the F1 track in order to park. Which is to say: For a $5 Miami Hurricanes ticket and a $36 parking pass, your mom’s old Honda Civic can leak oil on the same track graced by Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari!

Now, we’re not suggesting — much less advocating — that anyone terrorize the parking attendants who keep things running smoothly on game days. We’re merely pointing out the vicarious experience that lurks within the quotidian. And let the record show that South Florida Motorsports (the Miami Grand Prix promotion company) didn’t respond to our emails or calls; the same went for Hard Rock Stadium media relations.

Held the first weekend of May each year, the Miami Grand Prix is part of the F1 World Championship series. A relative newcomer to the F1 circuit, the Miami Grand Prix is looking forward to its fifth iteration in 2026. Previous winners: Max Verstappen (2022, 2023), Lando Norris (2024), and Oscar Piastri (2025).