The F1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix has not experienced any notable decrease in ticket buyers from Canada this year despite potential headwinds from up north, and overall sales are pacing at a satisfactory level, according to new event president Katharina Nowak.

The Miami race is now entering its fifth year and is showing its maturity as event organizers have continued iterating the fan experience. New features this year for the May 1-3 event include different “neighborhoods” that will be set up across the sprawling campus, with each one themed to an actual area of the city of Miami like Little Havana and Brickell. There will also be the new multi-level MSC Yacht Club hospitality experience, something that Nowak thinks will be unique across sports, let alone F1. In addition, a fan fest will be held in Miami and put on by event organizer South Florida Motorsports for the first time, although F1 tried a similar idea in the first year of the race.

In recent years, about 66% of ticket buyers for the Miami race have been from the state of Florida, Nowak said. This year, not only is the Canadian Grand Prix moving closer on the schedule to Miami, but it also comes amid reports of some American businesses and cities seeing a downturn in Canadian visitors due to geopolitical tensions between the two countries.

Though they were eventually convinced to make the change, Canadian GP organizers had been concerned that moving the race from June to May could lead to the event being held before the country warms up from its frigid winters. Holding two North American races in two weeks could have discouraged some Canadians from attending both, but Nowak, who is in her first year in charge of the Miami Grand Prix, said that hasn’t been the case.

“We actually haven’t [seen a downturn in Canadian ticket buyers], no,” Nowak said. “Our fan base is now two-thirds from the state of Florida. We’re really, really excited about that [because] that will help us just continue to build a community and build on the motorsports fan here. But Canada has continued to be a strong market for us, and so does Latin America.

“So we’re obviously a couple weeks away and we don’t have all of our attendee data yet, because we only have buyer data at the moment, but we’re trending to be in line with what we have been in the past.”

FEELING GRAND: A review of the F1 Miami ticket sales site shows that the grandstand around the start/finish line is sold out for the weekend, as is a grandstand dedicated to fans of the new Cadillac F1 Team. Tickets remain available in eight other grandstand areas, including three that are dedicated to fans of the McLaren, Williams and Red Bull teams.

“We’ve been super excited to see how the demand for the GP this year has been pacing,” Nowak said. “We’re very happy to see the pace of our ticket sales be higher than it has been in the past year, so we’re very motivated at that, which is awesome.

“I think the fans are going to expect another exciting Grand Prix weekend. We’ve got now the F1 racing, a sprint race, McLaren trophy which is racing here for the first time, and then Porsche Carrera Cup coming back, and then of course we also just saw the announcement F1 made around F2 [racing in Miami due to a canceled Middle East race], so we’ve got more track activity than we’ve ever had before so the fans will be in for a good weekend.”

LUXURY CRUISE: One element that has Nowak particularly excited this year is the new MSC Yacht Club that is being built in the “marina” section of the track. The five-story hospitality unit is shaped like a cruise ship, which Nowak thinks might be a first in sports, and it will give attendees views of Turns Nos. 5-9.

Pricing started at $3,900 for a three-day ticket. Tickets are sold out for the area, according to the F1 Miami website. The concessionaire for the club will be French hospitality brand Bagatelle, and there will also be a Jack Daniel’s Lounge, private cabanas and all inclusive food and drink.

“Personally, I couldn’t be more excited about it — it’s something we’ve never done before. I actually don’t know if there’s ever been a temporary hospitality product that looks like a cruise ship,” Nowak said. “For us, it was all about changing the way that you might be used to experiencing a hospitality product, so when we thought about leaning into Miami and developing our marina experience a bit further, we were like, ‘Let’s just build one massive ship.’ And so now it turned into a five-story hospitality product that is 50 to 55 feet high at its highest point and you can now see almost 360 degree angles of a race track which we don’t have anywhere else on the campus.”

Added Nowak: “It’s unique for us because a lot of other races have this topography that allows fans to sit in a grandstand and because it’s a little bit elevated they can see different turns on the track. But in Miami, given the nature of South Florida and we’re pretty flat, we don’t have the ability to offer fans that. So we were like, ‘Let’s just build up as high as we can and create that experience for fans.’”