When the lights go out on the Las Vegas Grand Prix at 10pm Saturday night, local organisers will hope they’re the last thing on your mind.
If at no stage this weekend you have cause to think about the gargantuan project of setting up a street race in central Las Vegas, then they’ll have done their job.
Because make no mistake: getting Las Vegas off the line has been an enormous challenge.
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The Las Vegas Grand Prix was announced on this year’s calendar less than 20 months ago. There had been the option to push the race’s debut to 2024, but with F1 booming in America, Formula 1 thought it would be wiser to strike while the iron was hot and let some of the buzz generate itself.
And anyway, it would be shouldering the risk of this race itself. Unlike most races, Formula 1 isn’t outsourcing all the work and costs to a local government or private promoter; F1 is doing this all itself. If it flops, it’s F1 on the hook for its own failure.
So just hours out from the first F1 cars hitting the track, how’s it gone?
“I don’t think I have a single [obstacle] that stands out,” Emily Prazer, chief commercial officer of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, told BlackBook Motorsport. “[There have been hundreds so it’s hard to think of one that] was handled correctly or that we’re proud of.
“We’ve been trying to survive and get the race ready on time. It’s been really hard.”
It’s the fact that F1 owner Liberty Media, a sports media giant in the United States, was behind the project — and, more importantly, was willing to put its money where its mouth is.
“Ultimately the casinos had been approached multiple times over a race in Las Vegas and they didn’t truly believe it could happen until Liberty and F1 walked in the room to say, ‘This is real’,” Prazer said.
It started with a land purchase.
At the corner of East Harmon Avenue and Koval Lane was a dusty, derelict car park Formula 1 decided would be the beating heart of its showpiece event — almost symbolically banishing memories of the sport’s first attempt to crack Vegas in the 1980s, when it ran a grand prix in the then expansive car park of the Caesars Palace casino.
The almost 16 hectares of derelict land was purchased by Formula 1 for US$240 million (A$377 million) and settled in cash, and from the dust-bowl block has risen the focal point of the race: a state-of-the-art permanent pit building and paddock area.
The pit building is four-storeys tall and the largest in Formula 1 by footprint. The garages are commensurately spacious for the 10 teams, running to a depth of around 28 metres, or 1.4 times longer than the facilities of some of the calendar’s more dated venues.
Unseen from ground level is a 2600 square metre LED installation on the rooftop projecting a giant red F1 logo.
From the overhead camera shots — and you know there’ll be plenty of those this weekend — there’ll be no mistaking which sport conquered Las Vegas.
COSTS ESCALATE IN BATTLE AGAINST TIME
But one building isn’t enough to run a grand prix. As anyone who’s had to wait for the repair of even a single road outside their house or on their route to work would be able to guess, bringing more than 6 kilometres of public road up to racing standard is a massive and expensive task.
On top of just the resurfacing work is the challenge of installing race infrastructure — the 1750 floodlights, the 18 temporary grandstands, the trackside barriers, the pedestrian bridges — all while people continue to commute and tour the 24-hour city.
Adding to the difficulty is that Las Vegas Grand Prix is a new entity, and though it’s underwritten by Formula 1, F1 itself has no real experience setting up races. Historically it’s left that to local committees to figure out.
Setting up the race has come at considerable expense, with Liberty Media CFO Brian Wilding detailing capital expenditure costs of US$435 million (A$684 million) up to the end of September for the entire grand prix build, bringing the total cost of setting up the race to at least $1.06 billion.
More will have been spent in the last six weeks to bring the circuit up to race-ready condition.
“It’s a first-year event, you’re in Las Vegas, so everything comes with a little bit of a punch,” Prazer told BlackBook Motorsport. “It’s not specifically about not understanding the event costs; we’re building a racetrack in a living and breathing city, one of the busiest roads in North America. You have to go over and above on certain things.”
The Las Vegas road network, including down the Strip, was certainly substandard for a racetrack, cracked, potholed and weathered by the extremes Nevada’s desert climate.
The entire course has been resurfaced ahead of the event. According to Formula 1, between 12 and 25 centimetres of existing road was ripped out. For most of the track this extends the entire width of the road, though only the west, southbound side of the Strip has been repaved given the right side won’t see track action.
The surfacing work involved 60,000 tonnes of base-layer pacing to prepare the track, on top of which was layered 43,000 tonnes of asphalt to form the circuit surface.
Temporary roads have also had to be built to keep traffic flowing during construction and during the race weekend.
East Flaming Road, a 10-lane east–west thoroughfare, has been diverted onto a bridge that crosses the track at Koval Lane in the first sector to ensure the public can access business and residences in the circuit infield. The bridge was built in nine days.
Two further bridges on the south side of the track, crossing East Harmon Avenue, have been built for F1 personnel and teams to access the paddock, set up in similarly short time frames.
The result is a circuit that will deliver the visual spectacle promised by the sport last March.
Now it’s a question of whether the track will deliver the goods come Saturday night.
A LAP OF THE LAS VEGAS STRIP CIRCUIT
Circuit stats
Length: 6.201 kilometres
Laps: 50
Corners: 17 — 11 left and 6 right
Distance at full throttle: 79 per cent
Time at full throttle: 66 per cent
Sector 1: a tight first turn promising overtaking
The starting grid bends around a kink in the front straight, meaning those starting at the back won’t have a direct view of the first corner, which bends to the left.
The run from pole position to the first braking zone is relatively short, at 175 metres. Only the launches in Azerbaijan (141 metres), Monaco (142), Belgium (165), Saudi Arabia (168) and Miami (170) are shorter. It means the cars will be kept bunched up off the line for the first turn.
But on a flying lap this will be a high-speed approach, with cars having been flat out for more than 1.2 kilometres and travelling faster than 320 kilometres per hour, turning the braking zone into an overtaking opportunity.
The first corner bends into turn 2 and hairpins around the pit building before the circuit sweeps to the right and onto Koval Lane through turns 3 and 4.
This is the first DRS zone, measuring almost 1 kilometre long, and it ends at a second-gear, 100-kilometre-per-hour 90-degree right-hand turn.
It’s one of only three big braking events around the lap and is expected to be a key overtaking zone.
Sector 2: around the Sphere
The second sector is the tightest section of the circuit, sending cars 180 degrees back in the direction they came from on a trajectory towards the Strip.
Turn 6 is a long left-hand bend taken in top gear at 255 kilometres per hour before chicaning left, right and left again in three turns taken at around 90 kilometres per hour.
It’s exiting turn 9 that the track most closely hugs the Sphere, the newest addition to the Las Vegas skyline.
The world’s largest spherical building measures around 110 metres tall and is covered in 1.2 million LED lights, turning it into an enormous seamless screen. Inside it’s an 18,600-seat stadium.
The giant orb opened at the end of September. Since then U2 has been playing a 36-show residency, showing off the venue’s 16K resolution interior LED screen.
But with the F1 circuit surrounding the Sphere, U2 has had to suspend its run for almost all of November.
Formula 1 has had to pay for the Sphere’s closure, but as part of the deal with owner Madison Square Garden, the sphere’s external display will be used — you probably guessed it — as an enormous advertising board.
“We have bundled that into some [sponsorship] deals and also sold advertising directly to parties during the race, which will defray part of our costs,” Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei said, per Autosport. “It was a necessary cost for us because we need to be on their land.
“But in addition it was a revenue opportunity for us to lease, as I said, or sublease the time on the Sphere.”
F1 will also use the inside of the sphere for a “recovery brunch” on Sunday morning, with the internal screens used to replay highlights of the race.
Leaving the giant spherical advertising board behind them, cars will speed down Sands Avenue and through a gentle 290-kilometre-per-hour right-left sweep forming turns 10 and 11 before hitting the brakes for the left-handed turn 12. Wider than most of the track’s other corners, it’s taken at 115 kilometres per hour.
Getting a good exit from here will be crucial. Any mistake will be punished for the long 2-kilometre blast that follows.
Sector 3: down the Strip
Exiting turn 12 brings cars to the main attraction: Las Vegas Boulevard, the Strip.
There’s not much for drivers to do at this point. The track bends gently to the left, but the entire section will be easily flat. Cars are expected to reach around 340 kilometres per hour, but some suspect speeds approaching 360 kilometres per hour could be on the cards with a slipstream and DRS.
The long blast down to East Harmon Avenue is where Formula 1 will be making back its money with some spectacular television.
This is the iconic part of Las Vegas. Immediately exiting turn 12 on the right is Treasure Island, while shortly afterwards on the left is the Venetian. Drivers will be able to spy the replica of Venice’s St Marco’s Campanile not far from the edge of the circuit.
There’ll be no gondola rides, however, with the lagoon drained to make way for a hospitality area with views of the start of the straight.
Across the road, to the right, is the Mirage hotel and its famous volcano — though the volcano has been switched off for F1’s arrival and isn’t due to be turned back on until December.
One door down is Caesars Palace, home of the former Caesars Palace Grand Prix of 1981 and 1982, Formula 1’s first foray into Las Vegas.
The original track was built in the casino carpark, which has long since been obliterated by the rapid rate of construction down the boulevard.
Next is the familiar sight of the Bellagio Hotel and Casino and its iconic fountain. But if you’re expecting views recreating the final scene of Ocean’s 11, you’ll be disappointed.
Two sets of giant hospitality buildings have been set up over the front half of the fountain and over the balustrades and footpath. They’ve controversially required the chopping down of several quarter-century-old trees to be built, some of which the hotel says will be replanted before the end of the year.
The fountains have been switched off recently, but the hospitality boxes have been set up with a gap between them, presumably to ensure TV cameras can capture cars whizzing past with water dancing in the distance.
That won’t save those hoping to see the track from their hotel room at the Bellagio, with views of the road reportedly blocked by grandstands and VIP boxes.
There’s barely time to register the faux Eiffel Tower on the left before drivers are hitting the brakes for the last big braking zone of the circuit, where they’ll experience more than four times their body weight as they decelerate to 90 kilometres per hour at turn 14 — the last big overtaking opportunity — before powering through the turn 15-16 chicane and back up towards the finish line.
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THE RACE AFTER THE RACE
The Las Vegas Grand Prix is scheduled to end at around 11:30pm Saturday if all runs smoothly, meaning revellers can celebrate late into the night.
There’ll be no time to unwind for teams, however, for whom a yet more arduous task awaits.
Formula 1 head immediately to Abu Dhabi for its season finale.
It’s the longest flight of the year. If you could travel the 13,000-kilometre distance directly, it’d be an almost 15-hour flight, but the inevitable single stop blows that out to at least 19 hours in the air.
Add in the 12-hour time difference and F1 teams are losing comfortably more than the day they get back from the Saturday scheduling of the race.
There are just five days and two hours between the chequered flag falling in Vegas to first practice starting in Abu Dhabi. With pack down taking around a day and Abu Dhabi set-up to be completed by Wednesday, that realistically reduces the transit window to something like 48 hours.
Las Vegas airport is very close to the circuit, and its customs and freight processing has been bolstered specifically to speed up F1’s exit.
But just like the Las Vegas Grand Prix itself, there’s not much room for error.