The Ferrari Challenge has been added to the schedule for this year’s Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix, while an ice rink will also be installed on top of the Paddock Club.
There were no support races for the 2023 race when F1 returned to Sin City for the first time in 41 years, as issues with a drain cover caused damage to Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari and the Alpine of Esteban Ocon, leading to huge delays to Friday practice.
“We know what we have to do before the grand prix this year,” said Chief Commercial Officer for F1 and Las Vegas Grand Prix, Inc, Emily Prazer – who confirmed it will also be helpful to have other cars on the circuit before the F1 sessions begin.
Watch: Why Red Bull Must Escape their "Vicious Cycle" to Win Both F1 Titles in 2024
“We’re adding Ferrari Challenge. So that will be coming, we’re super excited about it. We took on the feedback last year of not having a support race. Logistics last year were our number one concern, which again I think everyone understood.
“So now we feel much more comfortable being able to extend the operating hours and the track activity. It was just a year-one confidence thing honestly, and now we’re feeling pretty good about it.
“Ferrari also brings a crowd that loves Las Vegas as you’d expect. So it’s a natural one for us to go after, and they’ve been incredible partners.”
As well as adding the Ferrari Challenge to the on-track roster, Prazer revealed that the F1 Academy will be showcased during the race weekend with the hope that the female-only series could one day also form part of the support races in Vegas.
Free tickets for an F1 Festival to run on Friday and Saturday have all been snapped up at 30,000 per day, as the championship aims to follow in the footsteps of the Super Bowl that was staged in Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium in February.
“Tickets are taken, it’s a capacity of 30,000 per day. Vegas is notorious that during major events, people flood there anyway. If you speak to anyone from Vegas, the casinos as well, it’s great that the Super Bowl was there, but they’re that busy during the Super Bowl anyway, so we wanted to take the spirit of that and have the city be as busy as possible if people aren’t necessarily coming to the grand prix,” explained Prazer.
“Which is why the LVCVA (Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority) have also put on a festival downtown, so they’re doing more of a music-based festival.
“They’re doing something downtown. We thought we have the land opposite the Wynn anyway as part of our relationship with the Wynn. We’re putting the hot lap cars there, the support race. Let’s turn it almost into an NFL experience opportunity and make it free to enter.”
The first modern era Las Vegas GP gave the area a chance to shine, with events taking place across the race weekend that would be unrivalled anywhere else on the F1 calendar.
All 20 drivers and a host of musical acts performed at the Wednesday night launch event, but Prazer believes increased confidence in the on-track elements of the grand prix means such things will not be required second time around.
“It is a destination which commands entertainment, but we wanted the entertainment to be as good as the racing,” she said.
“We’re scaling back a bit as we want to focus on actually delivering the best grand prix ever. The casinos are adjusting what they were doing around the race. The Wynn, the Bellagio, they all did incredibly well, but the reason we’re doing festivals downtown is to enhance the average person coming to Vegas that weekend and not putting them off.
“I think the first year, none of us knew how the racing was going to turn out. So we wanted to overcompensate because we wanted to make sure that it was a full, until you see those cars go around the track and see what actually happens it's very hard to just watch it on simulators going ‘oh, it's going to be a good race’.
“We had confidence, don't get me wrong. But when that came to life obviously for us everybody wanted it to be very Vegas-driven. And so do the partners in Vegas. They ultimately drive a lot of our mentality, the MGMs, Wynns, Caesars, they're incredible partners, but you see how they market the destination. We said, ‘right, let us take it up 15 notches’, which I think we did in year one. But the intent is to scale some of that back.
“We felt that we did do too much, the Wednesday night was a one-off. I will never, ever be allowed to spend that amount of money again on a 30-minute show. We were nominated for an Emmy, but apart from that, it was a project in itself!”
Another tweak comes in the form of more general admission tickets being sold for the event, with previous hospitality areas replaced to make it “much more accessible” to fans, while Prazer believes hotel rates will also not climb as high as for the debut race last November.
“It's going to be exceptional. But at the same time, being really focused on fixing some of those different issues we had. But for a first-year event, we're obviously very proud of what we delivered,” she added.
“Now it's just maintaining that standard…we're tweaking as we go. Last year, the food [which was included in ticket prices] was okay. This year, it's going to be even better. So we’re just trying to cater it for everyone and figure it out.
“I think it does take events three to five years to find their feet. So we're excited by it.”
Despite a change in approach on ticketing, marketing and the events laid on around the grand prix, Prazer expects revenue for the weekend to remain around the same mark, while there have been early moves made to rectify the issues that cropped up last year.
Traffic management will have an overhaul and merchandise has been sold wholesale to vendors to make sure there is enough to deal with the incredible demand.
Vegas being Vegas, organisers has also worked on eye-catching attractions to go alongside – the most unexpected of which will be an ice-skating rink housed on top of F1’s Paddock Club.
“We talk about Las Vegas within Formula 1 as almost like our little bit of an incubator that we get to try some different things and push the boundaries a bit more, because it's Vegas,” said Prazer.
“So we're putting an ice rink on the roof of the Paddock Club in Vegas this year. You would never see us do that anywhere else. But the intent is like, ‘how do we create more of an entertainment proposition?’
“The idea is, honestly, that if you look at the size of the Paddock Club and making sure that you actually activate all the space, it was one of those of, ‘what do we do?’ It's a lot of fun.”
It was not all smooth sailing in year one, a small number of local businesses and hotels taking legal action for loss of earnings after claiming the alterations made to the streets to accommodate the track were detrimental.
“The lawsuits are one thing that I probably can't talk about, but we've tried our best to make things right, so hopefully they'll get on board,” said Prazer.
“I mean, we are $650ish-million in so there's no way we're not going to continue pushing the boundaries of that. And it's opened up a ton of opportunity. The fact that LVCVA are now partnering with us outside of it, we've got incredible relationships with the resorts that are doing things. They obviously have interests in other areas of the world that we race in. So that's quite interesting.
“The sponsorship revenue is significant in Vegas and that's helping us have conversations on global levels as well. We are feeling pretty good about it.”
With alterations in place, plans to smooth out the wrinkles of last year and a support race organised, the Las Vegas GP organisers will certainly be hoping any wobbles will be limited to the guests who take to the newly installed ice rink.
