Plot twist: Miami Dolphins subsidiary helped pay for Mayor Suarez’s $30k F1 weekend

A company tied to the Miami Dolphins and team owner Stephen Ross, a South Florida billionaire with business before the city of Miami, gave Miami Mayor Francis Suarez a $3,500 Formula 1 ticket in May, a newly filed gift disclosure revealed.

In the filing to the state ethics commission, Suarez reported receiving a single day-pass for the Saturday F1 qualifier race from South Florida Motorsports, LLC — the Miami Dolphins subsidiary and organizer of the Miami Grand Prix, which is based out of Ross’ Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.

It is the latest in a drip-drip of information slowly revealing the sources behind Suarez’s $30,000 Grand Prix weekend in May, which is at the center of an ongoing state ethics investigation into whether the mayor violated Florida gifts laws when he attended Formula 1 and other high-end sporting events. Florida laws require routine gift disclosures and prohibit elected officials from taking gifts valued over $100 from anyone doing business with the city, including lobbyists and their employers.

The most recent disclosure filed by the mayor just days after the state ethics commission opened its investigation leaves questions unanswered — namely who paid for the mayor’s other F1 passes in recent years and why weren’t they disclosed as would be required if anyone other than the mayor or his immediate family footed the bill?

Social media posts show Mayor Suarez spent all three days of the Miami Grand Prix in the Paddock Club, F1’s most luxurious and exclusive viewing suite where weekend passes were estimated to have sold for upward of $14,000, according to Bloomberg. Gloria Suarez, the mayor’s wife, was also photographed in the Paddock Club on both Saturday and Sunday.

The couple’s Sunday attendance was at the invitation of Florida’s wealthiest man, Ken Griffin. Both the mayor and hedge fund manager previously told the Herald that Suarez reimbursed the cost of the $8,000 F1 Sunday passes in compliance with the ethics law, which allows a 90-day window to repay gifts that would otherwise be prohibited or require public disclosure.

Suarez has not provided documentation of repayment and repeatedly refused to answer questions regarding when he repaid Griffin and whether that was his original intent.

Suarez has still not accounted for at least six F1 passes he obtained in recent years, including his Friday, May 5, Paddock Club access or the other ticket he and his wife had to the Saturday qualifier. Suarez also never revealed the source of his tickets to the 2022 Miami Grand Prix, where a social media post shows him trackside along with his young son, wearing VIP passes.

City records obtained by the Herald through a public records request show Suarez spent some of the 2022 Miami Grand Prix in a Paddock Club suite sponsored by the Saudi Arabian state-owned oil group, ARAMCO. The mayor also had VIP access to the 2022 Grand Prix in Saudi Arabia, where emails show F1’s hospitality events manager, Phil Hornby, invited the mayor and his senior advisor to the Paddock Club and race track.

“Just thought I would reach out ahead of next week,” wrote Hornby in an email to the mayor’s advisor, Jeremy Schwarz, on April 29, 2022, days before the Miami Grand Prix. “We met at the Saudi GP when I took you and Mayor Suarez around the paddock and pit garages.”

Schwarz responded, expressing enthusiasm, but the emails obtained by the Herald did not include any further correspondence.

A spokesperson at Formula 1 international said the local F1 affiliate would field the Herald’s questions. The Miami Grand Prix, Hard Rock Stadium and their lobbyists did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment.

Over the past 11 days, the Herald made several attempts to contact the mayor, his city staff, and his attorney regarding this story. The mayor did not grant a meeting nor did his office acknowledge the Herald’s questions.

It’s not clear whether Suarez could, under the ethics law, legally accept a gifted ticket from South Florida Motorsports, LLC. While the company itself is not doing business in Miami, a city database shows lobbyists for South Florida Stadium, LLC, are involved in “sports entertainment event negotiations’‘ with the city. Ross is listed as the chairman and CEO of South Florida Stadium, LLC in Florida’s corporate registry.

South Florida Stadium, LLC is listed in the “subsidiaries and affiliates” section of the South Florida Motorsports, LLC privacy policy.

The Florida Commission on Ethics generally does not consider parent and subsidiary companies part of the same entity, said Caroline Klancke, founding director of the nonpartisan Florida Ethics Institute. But she said she could not find any state ethics opinion specifically addressing that.

Klancke, who formerly served as general counsel for the state ethics commission, said if the commission were to investigate, it would look at who actually gave the ticket to Suarez, and possibly even the private company’s ownership structure.

When filing quarterly gift disclosures, Florida law requires elected officials to attach receipts provided by the gift giver documenting the cost. Suarez did not do so.

The mayor’s office has not responded to the Herald’s formal public records request for receipts or other related documents regarding the F1 day pass.

Miami Herald staff writer Tess Riski contributed to this report.