Formula 1 is coming to Las Vegas and it’s going to be a party.
And if you don’t think so you don’t know a steering wheel from a checkered flag.
F1 race cars screaming down the Las Vegas Strip, showgirls and showtime and all the glitz that this suggests. It’s all going to be adding to the sin in Sin City.
The race is scheduled for Saturday during Thanksgiving Weekend 2023 with the track going alongside the Bellagio Fountain and will looop around the MSG Sphere, currently under construction.. The pits and paddock will be just off East Harmon Ave. The 3.8-mile 14-turn track includes 1.2 miles along the Strip.
Oh, and it will be run on a Saturday night. Is that Vegas or what!?
“That’s going to be insane,” said AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly.
Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton said it’s “going to be a pretty hardcore event.”
This is a collaboration between Live Nation Entertainment and the and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) as well as Founding Partners Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts International, and Wynn Las Vegas and Presenting Partners MSG Sphere, Resorts World Las Vegas and The Venetian Resort.
F1 and Liberty Media will work together to promote the race.
You can bet that there will be all kinds of F1-type of activities all weekend, including concerts and posh parties as Las Vegas bars and nightclubs.
“Iconic Las Vegas and Formula 1, the pinnacle of motorsport, is the perfect marriage of speed and glamour,” Liberty Media President and CEO Greg Maffei said at the announcement press conference. “Our confidence in this unique opportunity is evident in our decision to assume the promoter role for the Las Vegas Grand Prix in partnership with Live Nation.
“We could not be more excited to work with our local partners to create a marquee event. The potential of Formula 1 has been well demonstrated over the last several seasons and the Las Vegas GP will only take it to the next level.”
This is actually the second open-wheel street race in Vegas. Back in 1981 and 1982, IndyCar staged races that went around the Caesar Palace fountains (the same ones which Evel Knievel jumped in his motorcycle, landed awkwardly and broke almost every bone in his body).
Longtime IndyCar veterans still talk about how great that race and setting was to this day. So imagine F1 in a modern-day Vegas. It’s going to be off the hook!
Tickets won’t be cheap and neither will hotel rooms. Expect to pay $300 or more to get in and $500 or more for accommodations on and near the Strip. But that’s F1 and this is Vegas, baby.
It will be the third F1 race in the USA, the other two being Austin (Texas) and Miami.
And, as auto racing historians know, F1 was the original series in the early days of the Long Beach Grand Prix until it was decided that it was too expensive so organizers changed it to an IndyCar race, which it is today.
To be technically correct, the first Long Beach Grand Prix was an F3000 event, which was required b F1 to test the feasibility of holding a race on the city streets of Long Beach, CA. It passed the test and became an F1 race the next year.
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