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On Monday October 20, Formula E revealed the track layout for the Miami ePrix. Using the AmericanAirlines Arena – home of the Miami Heat - as a stunning backdrop, the March 14, 2015 event will bring street racing back to the Floridian metropolis for the first time in over a decade.
In fact, the last time the residents of Miami could see single-seaters racing around their streets was in 2003, when the Champ Car World Series staged the second of its two Grand Prix Americas around the Bayfront Park part of the city.
But street racing in Miami goes back further than that to the mid-1980s, when CART organised a race around the streets of Tamiami Park. Events took place on the 1.784-mile (2.87km) track from 1985 until 1988. Danny Sullivan, Al Unser Jr (twice) and Michael Andretti – whose company is organising the Miami ePrix – were the winners.
Tamiami Park was also the scene of two non-championship all-star events in which Andretti and Bobby Rahal triumphed.
From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, a successful sportscar race was run in Bicentennial Park, which is very close to the new Formula E circuit. In 1995, while work was being completed on the all-new Miami-Homestead oval, a CART race was held on this track, and Jacques Villeneuve took the honours.
It wouldn’t be until 2002 that single-seater street racing returned to Miami, with an updated version of another old sportscar haunt - Bayfront Park. The event lasted just two years, with Cristiano da Matta and Mario Dominguez the victors.