LAS VEGAS — The start of Formula 1’s residency in Las Vegas last November was an important moment in the sport’s 73-year history.
F1 spent more than half a billion dollars to stage one of the most hyped races in its history, taking charge of promoting and organizing the entire Grand Prix.
Despite a bumpy start – a loose water valve cover canceled the first practice and delayed the second practice on a bad opening night – the event was a great success. On track, the fight for victory continued into the closing laps as Max Verstappen, Sergio Pérez and Charles Leclerc went back and forth trying to gain position. The fast-flowing layout, with a long straight through the Strip, proved a hit with the drivers and made for the most entertaining race of the year.
The Grand Prix was a money-spinner, despite the frustrations of locals due to the disruption of Formula 1 in the city. November is usually the eighth best month of the year in the city. In 2023 it was the second best month in its history.
“We knew it would be big, but the attention… honestly, F1 has done a fantastic job building that race,” said Steve Hill, the CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). “It was two or three times more marketing value than we expected. We would have been happy with a third of what we got.
“We would have been very happy with what we expected, but what we got was an eye-opener.”
As F1 returns for its second shot in Las Vegas, there is a new dynamic. The novelty factor has diminished, but in its place is experience and, for the organisers, a script to work from. There is a bar where you can meet again.
The spotlight on the racing action in Las Vegas has only increased thanks to the improved competitive picture through 2024. Last year, Verstappen had long since been crowned champion by that point; now there’s a chance he can win his fourth title on Saturday night, as long as he finishes ahead of Lando Norris.
F1’s potential to crown a champion at its most high-profile event is attractive for the sport and something that race organizers know would provide a unique opportunity to put a Las Vegas twist on the festivities.
“I’m sure we can pull some ideas out of our hats and maybe arrange some pretty exciting possibilities in advance,” Las Vegas Grand Prix CEO Renee Wilm said of a possible coronation, citing the noted high expectations. put an end to the catering options at the buildings along the Strip. “There are so many opportunities to showcase the drivers, especially if we actually have the advantage of getting a champion.”
While the race organizers may have no control over the sporting spectacle, the success of last year’s Saturday evening race was enough reassurance that no changes were needed for 2024. The circuit remains unchanged, but they expect greater fan interest with a late start. season championship battle underway.
“In the US we like to see good competition, and it’s less about who the specific team or driver is,” Wilm said. “So to know that there’s still so much at stake and the championship is there for the taking, and the fact that you’ve had so many different drivers on the podium, that in itself creates a lot of excitement and excitement.”
A different approach has been taken to appeal to fans for the second edition of the race. In the run-up to the 2023 Grand Prix, there was critical scrutiny of the high ticket prices and how unaffordable it would be for people to attend. This year, more than 10,000 additional general admission tickets have been made available across three fan zones as part of the ticket inventory adjustment. The hope is to make it a race that is suitable for everyone, not just those chasing high-quality experiences.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix also changed the way the race was marketed, with build-up starting about 100 days in advance instead of more than a year in advance. Wilm said in October that ticket sales were “pretty consistent with what we expected” and that she expected an increase closer to the race because of Las Vegas’ reputation as a last-minute city. She also believed that many fans would wait until after the US presidential election, which may have left some “a little hesitant to know what their November will look like.”
According to a statement from last week’s race, 300,000 visitors are expected “based on calculated data from ticket sales and bookings for race-related programming.”
There has also been a more concerted effort to connect with the local community ahead of the second year. A free fan festival will take place on Friday and Saturday, giving visitors a taste of what F1 brings to Las Vegas, with tickets fully booked quickly. Hill thought it would help “build both goodwill in the community and an additional fan base in the southwestern United States.”
Race organizers have made efforts to inform the public about traffic around the race. (Dan Istitene / Formula 1 via Getty Images)
Developing goodwill among the community was especially important following the frustration many locals in Las Vegas felt last year over the scale of the disruption. The requirements to resurface sections of the road in front of the circuit – which involved removing 25 centimeters of the surface and replacing it with a section of road suitable for F1 cars – led to significant road closures and traffic problems. As much of the construction work was already completed last year, there was no need to repeat it this year.
“This year the community knows more about what to expect, and what we are doing is not building the track,” Hill said. “We actually only experienced any form of lane disruption in the first week of October, while last year it started in mid-April. You just get tired of it after a while.”
Wilm said they were “only light years ahead of where we were last October, in terms of local sentiment. This is the Las Vegas Grand Prix. It is also the Grand Prix of Liberty and Formula 1. So it is so important to us that everyone embraces this event as much as we do.”
Communication with locals is one of the areas where the race organizers felt there was room for improvement. “We communicated, but we didn’t communicate with the level of sophistication that this race requires,” said Terry Miller, the general manager overseeing the track’s construction. The Athletics. In 2024, the race improved a bespoke, interactive website where all information about road closures and possible disruptions can be found. It introduced a text message program, giving locals a ‘week ahead’ look, and met with more than 900 stakeholders to avoid surprises.
Another 2023 surprise that F1 is keen to avoid is the disruption caused on Thursday evening by the loose water valve cover that destroyed Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari, causing FP1 to be canceled after eight minutes and FP2 to be postponed for so long that police asked fans to to leave a job. at that point. While it was hardly the first time a utility cover had appeared on an F1 street circuit, it was by far the most infamous incident.
Miller explained that there are new protocols in place for this year. “Because of what happened last year, we actually have a protocol and a process that we’ve been going through over the last five months to secure the lids, even to the point where we’ll do three or four visual checks to see what’s on the away happens before and after a racing event,” he said, confirming that extra checks were in place after what happened last year.
“You can never guarantee that nothing will happen,” he said. “But you can certainly put in the mitigation efforts to reduce the risk, and that’s what we’ve done.”
Despite the frustration felt by some in Las Vegas, the commercial success of the race was significant. A Clark County report estimated the total economic impact of the Grand Prix at $1.5 billion, of which $884 million came from visitor spending. It generated $77 million in tax revenue and turned what is normally the second-worst weekend of the year into, according to Hill, “one of the best weekends we’ve ever had,” exceeding all expectations.
Matching that in 2024 will be a big ask, and it’s not expected to be repeated in such a spectacular manner. “We probably won’t be able to compete with the first year’s numbers again, and we don’t need to be successful to be successful,” Hill said. “If the numbers were half that, it would still be a game changer.”
It means that a successful second edition of the Las Vegas Grand Prix is more about sustainability: putting on another spectacular show with fewer problems or frustrations. Not everything will be to everyone’s taste. Saturday’s 10:00 PM PT start time remains unchanged, and this will inevitably inconvenience drivers and their team personnel; a new dose of time zone confusion to kick off a tripleheader that continues with two weeks in the Middle East to close out the season.
While there is a desire to reduce the demands placed on drivers for the ‘spectacle’ surrounding the Grand Prix, the show versus sport debate is also likely to reignite when they arrive in the paddock on Wednesday.
But now it’s about reaching what Hill thought was “a balance point” between excitement about something new and the uncertainty or concern it might cause locally, proving this can be a long-term event.
“That kind of sustainability is very important,” says Hill. “It’s a tough race to organise, it’s on one of the busiest streets in the world and it’s not easy to do that. But it will be a fantastic week.”
(Top photo: Bob Kupbens/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)