There is an air of buoyant confidence about Katharina Nowak that is striking but also understandable given the robust state of Formula One in the United States and at the Miami Grand Prix, where the 29-year-old who is at the helm of the race believes the sport only has more to come.
“F1 is at its strongest right now that we’ve seen, the interest in F1 is still going up and will go further,” she says in the buildup to this weekend’s meeting in Florida. “From my seat at the table, we are seeing the interest continue to grow.
“Obviously 2022, when we launched the Miami GP, was a perfect storm but last year ESPN reported record-breaking viewership numbers in the United States for 22 out of the 24 races. We’ve seen it in our success in our ticket sales this year that, there is strong demand for the Miami GP and for F1.”
Nowak was appointed as president of the Miami GP last year making her at then 28 years old the youngest person to hold such a post in F1. Notably she is also one of only two women to to do so, alongside Emily Prazer, the president of the Las Vegas GP, which is run by F1’s owners.
Nowak has worked at the Miami GP since its first race in 2022, when a brand new, glamorous city-based race in the US held in the immediate aftermath of the Covid pandemic made for unprecedented interest and demand.
There was debate whether that enormous interest would return as the novelty wore off and, with the addition of the Las Vegas GP alongside the US GP in Austin, the US could sustain three meetings. Yet on the eve of the fifth race in Miami, which has a contract until 2041, Nowak sees only positive signs in the market F1 has long coveted. Every race here has sold out and this year will be no different with demand greater than predicted.
“Our ticket sales have really been the defining factor in that this year our renewal numbers were higher than they’ve been in the past years,” she says. We’ve been pacing ahead of our targets every single month since we went on sale.”
Perhaps most interestingly for someone in such a senior position in F1, Nowak comes very much from the new vanguard of what some would argue represents the future of the sport. She grew up in Austria and admits to only really knowing about F1 from spending summers with her grandparents and uncles as a little girl and being aware of this “really loud sport” they would watch. A somewhat fleeting association until F1 came to the Hard Rock Stadium where she was working and where she threw herself at the chance to join the F1 project.
“I’ve actually grown into F1. While I knew what the sport was and I remember summers sitting in front of the TV, I didn’t understand it fully and have a respect for it like I do now,” she says. “I really got an understanding for the sport and respect for the sport while watching [Netflix documentary] Drive to Survive.
“So I really was one of those bandwagon F1 fans that jumped on once Drive to Survive came out and that gave me an even more a better introduction into working in F1 than I could have probably gotten otherwise.”
This might well irk the purists, but it is part of the new reality of F1 and its success. Nowak who came to the sport though Drive To Survive is an ideal choice to maintain its dynamic in the US.
Not least given the demographics Miami is appealing to are exactly those which F1 has been targeting. Its sales are a 49-51 split in women to men and skewed toward a young audience. For a young race and a young audience, no one here really cares how they came to the sport, only that they’re enjoying it.
Innovation remains key, Nowak believes, and this year the circuit has reacted to feedback including adapting a section of the coveted Miami marina and its fake water for general admission tickets.
Miami, however, faces pressure from its US counterparts, not least in that Las Vegas’s night race on the streets of Sin City is laying claim to be the glamour destination of the three, possibly creating something of a rivalry given they are in competition for attention?
“I get asked that quite a bit,” says Nowak. “I always have to say that I actually don’t think there is. Credit goes to F1 for allowing each of the promoters around the calendar to really have their own identity and show off who they are in their own way. We’re seeing more and more new audiences coming to the GP. So I think we’ve got more than enough room for all three of us races to continue to succeed and grow in the United States.”
Nowak is confident then on the eve of her first weekend leading the show in Miami. It is a position from where she feels she can also make a difference in what remains a male-dominated arena. F1 is changing and Miami, in more ways than one, is very much part of it.
“I do feel a certain responsibility for the women of our organisation but also the women in the other motorsport roles to show them that it is possible and what it takes to get here,” she says. “There are 250 women that work for Hard Rock Stadium, the Miami Dolphins and the Miami Grand Prix. So for those women alone I feel a responsibility and accountability to support and continue to lift them up like others have done for me.”