Miami spice: Lewis Hamilton’s delight at first of three US F1 races

Lewis Hamilton has hailed the growth of Formula One in the United States as a remarkable success story for the sport, describing it as a dream for F1 to be racing again at the Miami Grand Prix. He is likely to face another trying weekend at the Hard Rock Stadium circuit but he reiterated his determination to help Mercedes return to the front of the grid.

This is the second time Formula One has been held in the city after the circuit made its debut last season. It is the first of three races in the US this season. The US Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas will follow in October and the Las Vegas Grand Prix, taking place on the Strip and organised and promoted by the sport’s owners, Liberty Media, will take place in November.

After four years without a US GP between 2008 and 2011, racing returned to Austin in 2012, but initially struggled to gain a mass audience. However, in recent years, partly fuelled by the Drive to Survive TV series, there has been a huge surge in the popularity of the sport with COTA and Miami selling out. Last year, the US GP attracted 440,000 fans over the weekend, an F1 record, while the Miami race reached a record TV audience in the US of 2.58 million viewers. Hamilton, who is by far the sport’s highest-profile driver in the US, acknowledged how important it was for F1 to be popular in the country.

“It is a dream for us to be in Miami and in the United States,” he said. “They are massive sporting fans here so to be in such an important city like Miami where sport is huge – and now Formula One is part of that – it is great to see.

“For such a huge country, it is amazing that we finally have three races here. The difficult thing with Formula One is that you usually visit a country once a