Formula One is gambling big on Las Vegas to the tune of at least £400million — and there is no guarantee it will pay off.
F1 owner Liberty Media has broken from its usual model to act as promoter and also to run a race on a Saturday night for the first time in the sport’s history, the aim being to reduce disruption in order to use Sin City’s famous Strip. Even U2 have been shunted from their residency at the Sphere, with F1 hiring that out for the weekend, too.
There is no denying the inaugural Vegas GP will prove eye-catching, as cars hit a top speed of 212mph down a 1.4-mile stretch of the Strip, passing such iconic hotels as the Venetian, Caesars Palace and Bellagio. Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei promises it will be “iconic”.
A sell-out in excess of 100,000 spectators a day is expected. Prices in some quarters are astronomical, notably a £4m Emperor Package, which includes a five-night stay in a 10,000square foot villa at Caesars, a private chef and Rolls-Royce, among other luxuries.
Expect race weekend to be as brash, bold and in your face as you would imagine a marriage between F1 owners obsessed with the US market and the city itself.
The Forum Shops at Caesars marks the spot where F1 previously tried to crack Vegas four decades earlier for the Caesars Palace Grand Prix.
In 1981 and 1982, on what was then just a car park, Bernie Ecclestone tried and failed to make it stick. Driver John Watson famously called it “a track made up on canyons of concrete”.
Speaking of that attempt, Ecclestone said: “We couldn’t run on the Strip, which is what I wanted to do. The first year we ran in this area which was Caesars Palace car park, but on the understanding the following year we’d be able to do what I had in mind.
"But it never happened, because the people in Vegas, all the hotels, couldn’t see that it was going to be any good for them. So, that’s why we never went back to Vegas.”
Vegas is the third US race on the calendar this season, after Miami and Austin. A fourth in New York is being talked about, while Los Angeles is another potential long-term option.
You only have to look at the sport’s and teams’ sponsors to see the US impact, aided primarily by Netflix’s Drive to Survive and also a spike in interest as racing went on during the Covid pandemic.
Six of the last seven North American races were sell-outs, and the debut week of season five of Drive to Survive saw a nine per cent global audience rise, but a 40 per cent increase in the US.
This race is part one of a current three-year deal, which both the sport and the city’s powerbrokers expect to extend to around a decade.
There are still grumblings among locals about the shut roads and resulting traffic problems, but countering that is the estimation that the race will bring in the region of $1billion in revenue to Vegas.
Martin Brundle remembers watching the Caesars races on TV. His recollection? “It was a horrendous track and there’s a shopping mall on it now, which sums it up.”
"I think it will be wild... F1 will throw everything at it"
This time, his expectations as part of Sky F1’s commentary team are wholly different. “I think F1 will throw everything at it,” he said. “I think it will be wild.
“For decades, we tried to crack America and it never worked. This is the 12th different track over here. In Austin, people used to queue late in the day to see Taylor Swift.
"Now they queue in the morning for what’s on track, like it’s Silverstone or Spa. It’s taken off — and this is very important to F1, as they’ve really gone for it. It’s going to look spectacular. It’ll be interesting to see what Vegas thinks of us.”
As for the race itself, the expectation is that Max Verstappen will romp to win No18 of a remarkable season of dominance over the course of 50 laps of a circuit which boasts 17 corners and is 3.8miles long.
Immaterial of the outcome, for the most part, the drivers’ response has been good. Lewis Hamilton said it was a dream of his to drive down the Strip, while Verstappen was less positive, saying: “I think we are there more for the show than the racing.”
He might have a point, as F1 goes arguably bigger than it ever has before in the entertainment capital of the world.
