The Miami Grand Prix, in pictures!

Come with me to cover the Miami GP!

I had big aspirations about doing a day-by-day blog for the Miami Grand Prix… and then I arrived. And I realized exactly how many things I was going to do, and how long those things were going to take, and I decided that I was simply not going to kick my own butt for failing to meet my own absurdly high standards.

So, here we are! I'm doing a lil photo walkthrough of the weekend instead, which is far more manageable — and honestly, far more fun! Come with me to the Miami Grand Prix.

Wednesday, April 30 — or, the first day in Miami! We kicked off the weekend with VCARB's livery launch at Joia Beach, which was extremely neat. I've never been to a livery launch before, and I think I picked a good first one to go to, because I love a pink car.

For me, Wednesday is usually just a travel day. I try to get where I'm going in the afternoon, pick up my credentials, check into my accommodation, unpack (which basically just means grouping together outfits and setting out snacks for each day), and get a good night's sleep — but with the way F1 has been exploding in America, there are now usually events on Wednesday (or even earlier! I got invited to a Tuesday chat with Charles Leclerc but unfortunately couldn't swing it).

Day two — May 1 — media day! The calm before the storm! On Thursday, every driver must be made available for conversations with both print and broadcast media; six drivers will pop into the official FIA press conference, and the rest will likely be available at team hospitality or in the print media pen.

(There are some exceptions; Max Verstappen was unavailable on Thursday because his partner Kelly Piquet was giving birth to their first child together. Other drivers have skipped with illnesses.)

Fans and most VIPs aren't given access to the track/paddock on Thursday, which makes it a great time to explore and get your bearings. I worked the first Miami GP back in 2022, but so much has changed since then that it was nice to figure out the best way to move from Point A to Point B to Point C without swarms of people in the way.

Gifts, keepsakes, and trinkets! Most tracks provide a “media gift” to the folks who cover the event — which is honestly quite nice, because of all the people working at a Grand Prix, media can sometimes feel like the bottom of the barrel in terms of importance. In Miami, we were given a themed football helmet, a glass display piece, and a margarita kit featuring tequila.

Down in the paddock, there are usually plenty of freebies available. This weekend, ESPN/Hulu were giving away patches (of course I grabbed myself a Leo), while there was a massive F1 movie activation where you could get a photo for your own custom trading card, then have special APEX GP designs printed on a Tommy Hilfiger shirt. I also snagged some slick VCARB stickers that will soon be making an appearance on my laptop case.

Snacks! Including my delicious Indian take-out dinner on Friday, when I realized that I simply would not be capable of leaving my Airbnb, and some bites from the circuit. In the paddock, there was a “Team Clubhouse” that featured a rotating selection of restaurants, including Popup Bagels, pizza, sushi, arepas, empanadas, Cuban treats, and cookies. There's always food provided in the media center, but I do love when tracks make a point of bringing local vendors into the paddock; I generally don't have the time to explore the local cuisine when I'm working, so it's so cool when they bring to goods to us!

Views from inside the paddock: The ESPN activation in the Team Clubhouse featured the Stanley Cup (which I exclusively referred to as the Porsche Carrera Cup just to annoy the men taking pics of it), an APEX GP/F1 movie garage activation to celebrate the release of the film's soundtrack, and a view of the team hospitality setup inside the stadium, as seen from the media center.

Fit checks courtesy of the cute lighted mirror in the Team Clubhouse!

On Thursday, I enacted the world's speediest costume change in the media center so I could head off to a screening of the first episode of F1: The Academy, which is the F1 Academy version of Drive to Survive. I'm still working on my full review, but it was a wonderful evening — it's still weird that I was in the same room as Reese Witherspoon. (I know maybe four things about non-motorsport pop culture, but it is nevertheless strange to me that I end up in the same spaces as celebrities? People that I have actually heard of, despite knowing nothing??? Wild.)

Saturday night was the official Cadillac F1 team launch in Miami Beach. I boogied from the track to the hotel of the wonderful Ash Vandelay, who let me have a shower and clean up so I didn't have to make the obnoxious trek to my Airbnb.

The venue in question was Queen, a wonderful Japanese steakhouse (with sushi that changed my life). It was my first team launch, as well as my first time attending an F1 event that was more catered toward the celebrity crowd than the motorsport crowd. Terry Crews presented the new Cadillac logo, and the night kicked off with a stunning performance from Janelle Monáe.

I don't know that it was necessarily “my” kind of event; that's not a critique in any way, more of an understanding that I am an introvert who prefers writing words as opposed to schmoozing with people who are decidedly well outside my tax bracket. (At one point I was chatting with some folks who were like, “Will we see you in Cannes?” For the film festival??? For anything???????? No, you will not, haha.) It was still really wonderful to be invited and to have the experience; these are the kind of events that motorsport media usually don't get access to, and it gave me a lot of great insight into the way Cadillac is approaching its debut.

Track views from the journalist's perspective! I spent most of qualifying (and the race, if a driver retires early) from the media pen. As drivers are knocked out of quali or retire from/finish the race, they filter through the press pen to answer a few questions before they can consider their media duties done for the day. The last photo in this collage is my last view of the track before leaving on Sunday night. The sun has usually long been set, and teardown has already been kicked into high gear.

And one last photo: a kitty! My Airbnb was a cute little duplex, and the folks next door had a sweet little cat who would come say hello when I retired for the night. She usually had a little vest on. I loved it.