2023 Hard Rock 300

The **2023 Hard Rock 300**, was a 300 mile motor race that took place on 30 April 2023 at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, a 1.5 mile intermediate oval track located in Homestead, Florida. The race was the seventh of the 2023 AT&T Champ Car World Series season, and the last before the 110th Indianapolis 500.

Kunimitsu Kinoshita entered the race as the points leader of the Indycar World Championship, having won four of the first six races of the season.

## Background

The Champ Car World Series initially planned to have a race in the streets of Miami for the 2023 season, with a 3.36 mile temporary circuit being constructed around the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. When completed, it would allow the series to race in the streets of Miami for the first time since 1996, when David Germain won the race on the Miami Bicentennial Park circuit. However, the president of the Champ Car Drivers Association, three time World Champion Stephanie Porter-Kelley, did not approve the course for racing in time for the 2023 season. Porter-Kelley called out the track's usage of elevated curbs to enforce track limits, as such curbs had caused spinal injuries to drivers around the world over the past three years. Firestone, the series' sole tire supplier, also said it did not have a tire compound it deemed suitable for the new venue, as the venue was the first in the U.S. to use graywacke aggregate as racing surface tarmac. Other venues, such as Circuit of the Americas, and Watkins Glen International, use the asphalt compound to fill runoff spaces, but not for the racing surface. Firestone projected that the different asphalt, in addition to the south Florida heat, would do dangerous amounts of degradation to the tires Firestone had already prepared for the 2023 season.

The decision was made in February 2023 to move the event to the Homestead-Miami Speedway, which had last hosted a Champ Car event in 2020. Champ Car events at Homestead-Miami Speedway have been long mired in controversy. The track has seen several high-profile crashes over the past decade. In 2017, during a pre-season event, rookie driver E.C. Gadget was killed in a multi-car crash, while the 2020 event saw Jace Clarke injured and forced to miss the Indianapolis 500 that year. Drivers were initially skeptical of the decision, especially once it was discovered Dreamcatcher Promotions had offered the use of the revived Nazareth Speedway as an alternative. That skepticism increased after Isabel Espinoza, and Shufen Zhang were injured in a horrific crash at Twin Ring Motegi, however, following the race at Texas Motor Speedway, the drivers voted by majority to push forward with the race at Homestead, believing the race would not be the characteristic "pack race" that had been so often a staple of the venue.

### Tire Availability

As with the previous large speedway race at Texas Motor Speedway, Firestone supplied the primary "black-walled" Firehawk tire compound for the race. The primary compound produces lower levels of initial grip, which slows the cars down, while also providing more lifespan, allowing teams to plan and strategize around fuel economy instead of tire longevity. For 2023, drivers largely agreed that the primary tire compound was vastly improved compared to previous years, making it the preferable option for the faster ovals.

## Pre-Qualifying

Pre-qualifying for the Grand Prix of Miami took place on the morning of Friday, April 28th. Due to the venue being a late substitution with no prior data with the new tire compound, the pre-qualifying session was pushed back to the start of Friday's activities, with a 30-minute acclimatization session taking place instead on Thursday evening to allow drivers to learn the track before attempting to make the race. Pre-qualifying officially took place between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. local time.

## Practice

Free Practice for the race took place on Friday, April 28th, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET. With the circuit being a late addition to the calendar, drivers were given an additional 30 minutes to learn the track at the request of the Champ Car Driver's Association president, Stephanie Porter-Kelley, who was present for both the 2017 and 2020 races that saw drivers killed or injured.

## Qualifying

Qualifying for the race took place on Saturday, April 29th, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. local time.