McLaren F1 Uses GTA: Vice City To Welcome Miami Grand Prix
GTA-style art by McLaren's social media team was used to build anticipation for the Miami Grand Prix, a new Formula 1 race scheduled for 2022.
To celebrate the announcement of the Miami Grand Prix launching in 2022, one of Formula 1's more prominent teams, McLaren, shared a poster hilariously and suspiciously styled after Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's box art. The image disappeared from official McLaren channels almost as quickly as it came, but it's thankfully been preserved as one of the year's best sports and gaming crossovers of the year so far.
F1 is primarily popular in Europe, and as a result, there are few races held in North America - though the racing sim game series fares a good bit better stateside, with the newly revealed F1 2021 set to be one of the franchise's biggest entries yet. The only dedicated US F1 track is the Circuit of the Americas, located just outside Austin, Texas, where people travel from around the world each year outside of COVID-19 pandemic conditions. The inaugural Miami race will be 3.36 miles (5.41 kilometers) long and twist around Hard Rock Stadium. Speeds are expected to reach as high as 198 miles per hour (320 kilometers per hour) - naturally, separate from public traffic.
The McLaren image was preserved and shared on Twitter by Grand Theft Auto series creator Mike Dailly. It features drivers Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo, as well as the team's car and Miami-style scenery. The city is famous for its beaches and Ocean Drive, which stacked with neon-lit clubs and other businesses. Replicas of these and other Miami cliches can be found throughout GTA: Vice City, although that game is mostly concerned with imitating fictional versions of the city seen in Scarface and Miami Vice, as well as 1980s pop culture in general.
The game is nearly 20 years old, and even its mobile-oriented follow-up, GTA: Vice City Stories, shipped as far back as 2006. Fans have often suggested Rockstar should return to the setting, since it remains one of the most popular yet hasn't been revisited in a mainline GTA title. Liberty City has been featured several times, and even Los Santos has been in both GTA: San Andreas and GTA 5. Some other possibilities include Las Venturas and San Fierro, based on Las Vegas and San Francisco, respectively.
There have been rumors of Grand Theft Auto VI coming to Vice City or even having a multi-city setting. The latter has been done before, but would be extremely resource-intensive to build worlds with the same level of detail as Grand Theft Auto V, ignoring next-generation graphics and gameplay upgrades. Rockstar is flush with cash from the DLC sold in GTA Online, however, and controls multiple studios, so it could be feasible - especially if the company plans to integrate the cities into its online space.
Source: Mike Dailly/Twitter