Sunland Asphalt, working with RDO and the Wirtgen Group to ensure they have the right equipment, technology and expertise to meet the tight tolerances required on the Formula 1 racetrack resurfacing project
In the Formula 1 world where millimeters matter, Sunland Asphalt Paving knew they would need their A team on hand to handle the resurfacing project at Miami’s Formula 1 Track. They mobilized 75 internal employees, 15 technical specialists, and 40 pieces of heavy equipment from around the country on 35 separate transport loads. A total of eight machines were used, including two Vögele Asphalt Paver SUPER 2000-3i, three Wirtgen cold milling W 210 Fi and three Hamm tandem roller HD+ 80(i).
The project's scope consisted of milling 2-in. of the existing track and repaving with a highly specialized asphalt mix designed specific to Formula 1 standards. Crews were to repave the track at 2-inch thick for a total of 9,500 tons over an eight-day period.
Construction scheduling for the 3.36-mile counterclockwise circuit – which winds around the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens – had to be choreographed around the stadium’s multiple other events including the end of the NFL football season, a jazz music festival and the Miami Open tennis tournament. The International Automobile Federation also required Sunland to have the mix put down 60 days before the event for the material to properly cure.
Needless to say, it took a lot of coordination for Sunland to make this happen and the Wirtgen Group was just one of the many partners in place to help.
The Need for Speed - And Grip
In 2022, Miami held their first Grand Prix event on the track. When drivers expressed concerns with the grip on the track, track owners decided to lay fresh asphalt ahead of this year's race. The track hired TILKE to oversee track resurfacing which they said would ultimately improve the “spectacle” of the 2023 race.
Sunland Asphalt Paving was hired to complete the resurfacing of the track and began work to remove the existing surface in the early spring of 2023. Three Wirtgen W 210 Fi mills worked diligently and moving at a slow pace, just 38 to 40 feet per minute (fpm), to meet the tight tolerances required on the project. The crews were able to mill about 17,000 sq. yd. of material per day and completed all removal of material in five days.
The mills were equipped with UTS-controlled milling to bring the asphalt to design standards by taking the track design data into the machine. The Wirtgen machines use much smaller tool spacing in their milling process than you’d normally see to assure accuracy to within millimeters.
Sunland Asphalt trucked all of their own equipment in to ensure crews were familiar and comfortable with their equipment and processes. They used two SUPER 2000-3i pavers working in echelon - or side by side - which creates no cold joints along the 50-ft. wide track. This ensures that the surface of the pavement is as smooth as possible.
The Vögele SUPER 2000-3i pavers working “hot to hot” in echelon.
The pavers were also moving at a very efficient pace of just 6-fpm to ensure paving smoothness. Comparatively, pavers move at a speed of 25-30-fpm when paving a typical roadway.
The mix design for the track included 60% US-mined granite from Georgia with the remainder of the aggregates being locally-sourced limestone from Southern Florida. These aggregates ensured the grip needed on the course.
In addition to the three Wirtgen mills, Sunland used three Hamm HD+ 80-rollers and two Vögele SUPER 2000-3i Asphalt Pavers. The technology that was enabled on this equipment played a key role in helping to ensure the project was meeting the specifications required on this project.
The Wirtgen Group technology on these machines is “plug and play” which allowed the team at Sunland to get up and running with these machines very easily.
VR 600: The VR 600 Extending Screed is the ideal tool for paving in widths between 10 ft and 19 ft 8 in. Equipped with our proven electrical screed heating system, the VR 600 Extending Screed builds superbly even, top-quality road pavements.
Big-MultiPlex-Ski: Its beam can be fitted with three multi-cell sonic sensors as standard. This enables the Big MultiPlex Ski to scan a reference at several points located at a distance from one another. Vögele’s Niveltronic Plus System for Automated Grade and Slope Control calculates a mean from the measurements taken across the entire measuring range, making up for any unevenness over long distances.
“The intelligent compaction on all the rollers shows us our roller patterns throughout the day,” Hughes said. “It provides us real-time documentation of the areas we are hitting and if we’re hitting any areas more than we should. We’re also able to know if we should be vibrating more or less as well.”
With the Hamm Intelligent Compaction system, users are able to set a designated number of passes ahead and the system will show you on the screen how many passes have been completed. This is incredibly beneficial on nighttime paving projects when it may be difficult to see areas that have already been compacted and areas that might still need attention.
Sunland says they don’t just use the intelligent compaction system for quality, but also as a training tool. “We use it in the office to see where we could be more effective,” Hughes said. “We sit with our roller operators, and we can show them where we might be able to improve on future jobs.”
The crews finished paving the 19 turns of the course just in time, and the 2023 Miami Grand Prix was a success - thanks to the hard work and dedication of the people behind the machines.
