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When a loose water valve cover wrecked the underside of Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari and forced officials to cancel opening practice after eight minutes, Formula One’s big bet on Las Vegas looked at risk.
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The series spent over $650 million to make the race happen, getting buy-in from all the major casinos and the city to shut down the Strip. Now, the external narrative was how such an oversight could have been allowed to happen, leading to a long, awkward night for F1 as it moved to rectify the situation. Nearly five years of work could be sunk in one moment.
“That was a hard anchor, too early,” Greg Maffei, Liberty Media’s CEO, said at an event in Monaco last month.
“Everybody was a little tense,” added Brian Gullbrants, the president of Wynn Las Vegas. “It was a little difficult.”
What followed was a turnaround few could have expected.
The rest of the race weekend went seamlessly, resulting in one of the season’s most exciting races, even if it was another Max Verstappen victory. Off-track, it was an enormous commercial success for F1 and the city of Las Vegas, exceeding the considerable hype built in the lead-up.
GO DEEPER
How the Las Vegas GP delivered a thrilling race — despite another Max Verstappen win
“We put Las Vegas on a global scale from a broadcast perspective that’s never been done before,” said Renee Wilm, the CEO of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. “The Super Bowl is an incredible event here in the U.S., but Formula One is a global sport. The world got to see Las Vegas in a way that it’s never seen.”
Once the race wrapped up, and as the city prepared to host the Super Bowl a couple of months later, the Las Vegas Grand Prix team immediately shifted its attention to year two, now lacking both the novelty and unknowns of the inaugural running.
Between responding to feedback from the F1 community with tweaks like adjusting the on-track timetable or toning down the driver activities and finding ways to make the race accessible to more fans, the organizers quickly found year two would be a very different challenge.
“I wouldn’t say it’s easier in year two,” said Wilm. “But it is a significantly different experience.”
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Proof of concept
Pulling off a grand prix in Las Vegas was one of the most ambitious — and costly — undertakings in F1’s 70-plus year history. The commitment of the Vegas race partners, particularly the casinos and the tourism board, was clear, but to make it happen was nevertheless an extremely demanding task.
Many locals were frustrated by the road closures and traffic caused by the repaving process required to turn the Strip into a race track and balked at being priced out by the tickets. Officials in Las Vegas are already confident of a smoother second year, given much of the work required in 2023 does not need to be repeated, and have already highlighted communications to keep locals updated on works programs as an area for improvement.
Operationally, as experienced as F1 may have been, new things kept emerging as it served as the promoter of a race for the first time. One of Wilm’s colleagues put it this way: they were “flying the plane as we were building it” through the first year.
“Now we do have a playbook,” Wilm said. “We had none. We were truly figuring it out as we went along. Now, we do know what works. We know what we’d like to tweak. We know what we want to think about doing in a completely different way to keep us as a fresh and interesting new event.”
The race was a commercial success for both F1 and Las Vegas. A report commissioned by Clark County estimated the total economic impact sourced to F1 and the Las Vegas Grand Prix to be $1.5 billion, $884 million of which was courtesy of visitor spending. Brian Yost of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said the Super Bowl’s economic impact in February was “roughly $1 billion.”
Visitors stayed an average of four nights for the grand prix and spent $4,100 — not counting tickets. The event also raised $77 million in tax revenue, which Wilm said was “a tremendous success for the state of Nevada and Clark County” and displayed the boost hosting such a big event brought despite the inevitable disruption. “There is very much a proof of concept on the economic stimulation that we can bring to the town.”
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What’s new for year two
Las Vegas has already announced one tweak for this year’s race, bringing both practice and qualifying forward by a couple of hours to 10 p.m. local time after criticism over the schedule last year. It has retained the same start time for the race on Saturday night — 10 p.m. — in the belief it remains the best option for the primetime audience. The timings will still make for a tough start to the end-of-season triple-header, with Qatar and Abu Dhabi in the following two weeks.
Zanella claimed the timing made the race feel “like a heavyweight fight” due to the buzz in the lead-up to lights out. “It was like any other major sporting event in Las Vegas on the night of the race,” he said. “There was a lot of excitement, and it will bring a lot of people back.”
F1 reported an attendance of 315,000 for the three days in Las Vegas, even through criticism of the ticket prices. Wilm expects a similar crowd number for year two, but there has been a restructuring of its ticket allocation to “reach as many of our fans as possible” by introducing an additional 5,000 general admission tickets in place of some of the higher-end hospitality options.
Officials in Las Vegas aren’t concerned the novelty factor will wear off and result in a more muted second grand prix. If anything, they anticipate the opposite. “We’ve heard from many of our regular guests and higher-profile guests that they were a little anxious going into the first year because of so much hype,” said Gullbrants. “They saw such a great race; now we’re hearing that they’re actually coming. I think we’ll get another wave of people that were stand-offish ready to come and join us now.”
F1 would also like more crossover with the other sporting properties in Las Vegas. One day after the race, the Las Vegas Raiders will host the Denver Broncos—Liberty Media is based in Denver—and, according to F1’s chief commercial officer, Emily Prazer, the teams have already been talking about “creating more of an event around what they’re doing.”
“We’re also planning a lot more of a tribute to the Las Vegas sports market,” Prazer said. “We’re going to be working on a project with the Golden Knights and doing some stuff with the Las Vegas Aces. Again, trying to enhance all of the different community elements and create this real sports feeling around our grand prix.”
Maffei said Liberty would better understand what fans would want in Las Vegas, considering its involvement in promoting the race. “That allows us to have better learnings and meet their needs better over time,” Maffei said. “I’m excited for what we can do together there. I think it’s going to be a great spectacle, and I hope it remains as thrilling a race as in year one.”
Toning down the driver involvement
The main sticking point from the drivers in Las Vegas was the emphasis placed on the ‘show’ around the event rather than the race itself. The drivers were encouraged to make the event truly ‘Vegas,’ be it posing with a replica of the ‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’ sign in the paddock or meeting countless Elvis impersonators in the paddock throughout the weekend.
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It didn’t sit well with all the drivers, particularly when they were asked to participate in the opening ceremony, which included a hype man’s request they act like “rock stars.” Max Verstappen was the most vocal critic, calling the grand prix “99 percent show and one percent sporting event.”
Looking back, Wilm said there was an “obvious assumption made that Vegas would be all about the show and the spectacle.” But she felt the on-track success on Saturday night showed the most critical part of the grand prix — the grand prix— was still the highlight.
“It was important to us, particularly as the promoter and the parent company, to really highlight what these cars and drivers can do in such a challenging environment,” Wilm said. “To just see the incredible competition that resulted from the design of our track was also very rewarding.”
Prazer wryly referred to Verstappen’s concerns, saying there was “one particular driver that was very vocal that weekend, but I think we all saw by the end of it that he was singing ‘Viva Las Vegas’ on the radio.” She acknowledged the drivers supported all the extra requests, even if they “didn’t understand what they were walking into,” but said they would scale it back for year two.
“We’re definitely going to tone it down a little bit this year,” Prazer said. “We definitely did way too much with them last year. But they’re already dancing around Miami wearing Las Vegas Grand Prix merchandise. So I think they like it.”
F1’s commitment to Las Vegas is clear. Year one brought challenges, but there’s optimism they can be tackled better the second time around with the experience of 2023 and only capitalize on the evident support and excitement from those in the city.
“We’re here for the duration,” Maffei said. “We want to make Formula One tremendous, and no place would that be more exciting and potentially better than Vegas.”
Top photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images