Formula E is looking at holding a large-scale event at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami to help plug its eight-week calendar gap between mid-February and mid-April next year.
That event would not be an extra round of the championship. Instead, The Race can reveal that the advanced plans for this event are centred upon media influencers taking part in a possible two-day showcase that will use the Gen3 Evo car - although whether the actual Gen3 Evo cars currently being raced will be in use is yet to be decided.
An early March date is believed to have recently been decided upon.
A source close to the plans told The Race at the Sao Paulo season opener that a site visit recently to the home of the Miami Dolphins NFL team "scoped out a likely track configuration in a similar style to a Race of Champions-type event".
This is likely to create an against-the-clock format for celebrity guests to drive the cars, potentially after regular race drivers set a reference time, although the details of the format are yet to be formulated beyond a concept stage.
Heading up the sporting plans for the event is former IndyCar team owner Beth Paretta, who joined Formula E last summer as vice president of sporting.
She is working with recently announced chief marketing officer Ellie Norman and sporting manager Claudia Denni.
"It's still very conceptual and we're starting to understand more of what the concept is, we're starting to understand where some of the costs might lie, the share of responsibility there," said Andretti team principal Griffiths.
"There are still a lot of questions being raised. Even though I've seen some of the presentation documents I'm still really none the wiser as to exactly what it is we're going to be doing and what the format is and how it's all going to play out.
"How does this impact us from a sporting perspective, or not? For example, if we damage a powertrain during this, does that come out of our [cost cap] allotment or not? We don't yet have full clarity as to whether or not these are activities inside or outside of the cost cap so there's still a number of quite important questions that need to be answered.
"We know what they're trying to do is to generate interest and excitement around Formula E in that gap, but I think there's still some very challenging questions that need to be answered so we're waiting on that."
The Race has discovered that a tentative plan to have 11 cars, one for each team, is pencilled in. One option is to use a combination of manufacturer cars and active-pool spare cars - but it remains unclear precisely what powertrains will be used in them.
'Not a one-and-done'
Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds told The Race at the Jarama pre-season test last month of plans to complete an event in Miami but wouldn't offer details on the precise format or a location at that time.
"What we're looking at is a unique event that fills the gap," Dodds said. "And that unique event has to bring new potential fans to Formula E.
"It has to allow the teams to build their profiles and it needs to allow the drivers to start to build even better profiles for themselves to give them more exposure.
"It needs to be something that could be scalable into the future and I don't want a one-and-done-type customer event.
"If it works brilliantly, I want to be able to scale it in the future. That's what we're working on and we'll announce something shortly.
"There won't be the big gap in the calendar, there will be something in the middle of it."
Teams and manufacturers are apprehensive as to the precise make-up of the sporting and technical elements.
Porsche's team director Florian Modlinger said "at the moment we are in discussions and we get weekly updates" about the plans.
"For us it's not all parameters finally on the table, this means here again I am very analytical and I see it as a risk management thing in what it brings to Formula E, everything needs to be assessed properly: [the] sporting, financially, cost-cap side and then the marketing and commercial side. Then we have to take a decision on whether this is happening, yes or no."
Formula E has come in for considerable criticism for its calendar gaps in recent years, with a seven-week chasm in February-to-March 2024 caused by a late cancellation of the Hyderabad E-Prix.
Prior to that it also had to plug a gap in the 2021-22 campaign when a planned race in Vancouver had to be canned with just seven weeks remaining before its date. That time Formula E pivoted to use the Marrakesh track in Morocco as a last-minute substitution race.
