‘I really was one of those bandwagon fans’: meet Katharina Nowak, F1’s youngest race president

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.