Formula 1 will stage a Grand Prix on the Vegas Strip for a second successive year – assured in the belief history won’t repeat itself.
The 2024 Las Vegas race has been one of the most highly-anticipated of the season following the rave reviews from fans 12 months ago.
F1 made a triumphant return to Nevada last November with the debut of a billion-dollar track around the Vegas Boulevard.
Max Verstappen proved the sport’s ultimate high-roller in 2023, with another victorious stint past the Bellagio fountains earning him the drivers’ championship title.
The challenge for F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali will be to emulate the excitement generated from racing in the ‘Entertainment Capital of the World’ to further banish the efforts of his predecessor, Bernie Ecclestone.
It has been over two decades since Motorsport’s premier series staged the Las Vegas Grands Prix in successive years.
F1 fans will have to go back to the days of the Caesars Palace Grand Prix, held in 1981 and 1982, for when that last happened.
Ironically, motor purists will have fond memories of the events, with both having decided world championships, one for Nelson Piquet, and another for Keke Rosberg.
However, there are a number of reasons why the original Vegas Grand Prix isn’t looked back on so fondly.
Its Caesars Palace venue once staged glitzy boxing matches, including Marvin Hagler vs Thomas Hearns as well as Oscar de la Hoya and Evander Holyfield fights.
The world-famous hotel and casino’s former CEO Bill Weinberger was put in charge of the race, despite never having watched F1 before.
Speaking last year at an event at the Mob Museum in Vegas, Weinberger recalled: “I walked into the office one Monday morning and Bill McKinley [president of Caesars World] came in two minutes behind me.
“He asked ‘Did you see the race in Monaco on TV yesterday?’ I said ‘no’. He asked if I knew anything about racing. I said ‘no’.
“He said ‘Well, I think it’d be a great idea if we had a race like that in Las Vegas’. I said ‘probably’. He said ‘I talked to Cliff and he thinks it’d be a terrific idea. You’re on it’.”
Weinberger was then given the job of a lifetime to arrange the event, and came up with some plans along the strip and past the Palace and Dunes which he called ‘spectacular’.
Soon, though, the reality sunk in that things really hadn’t been thought out by those in charge.
“Every time we jumped a hurdle, they put another hurdle in front of you,” he explained.
“It was things like, well, you can’t run a Formula 1 race on that track unless you’ve already run an auto race on that track to prove it’s a good track.
“I had no idea the maze of problems that exists in the world of auto racing. Political problems, ego problems, people grabbing power here and grabbing power there. Jealousies here. Jealousies there. It was an absolute nightmare.
“The city said no and the county said no so we wound up doing it all on our own land.”
Rather incredibly, the race ended up taking place in the Caesars Palace car park, with entry through the casino itself.
Many of the modern F1 tracks, particularly those held in the Middle East, are often given the tag ‘car parks’ as an insult, but Weinberger wouldn’t accept that fact as a criticism for Vegas.
“We slaved through the summer of 1981 to get things ready,” he said. “It was commonly denigrated as a parking lot Grand Prix.
“Yes. It raced through the parking lot. But it was a deep-cut, built-up, purpose-built section of Formula 1-worthy asphalt.”
Deciding what to do with one just square of open space was a task in itself, and the origins of the final product are not just part of F1 folklore, but absolutely hilarious.
“Bernie Ecclestone was the czar of Formula 1 at the time,” Weinberger recalled.
“He and I were sitting in the coffee shop at Caesars Palace trying to put this deal together and he said how in the world are we going to fit a 2.5-mile track onto the space you got?
“I had my hand on the placemat and said how about this? I literally traced my hand around on the placemat. I said do you think we have enough space this way? He said it’s an awful lot of turns, maybe only a few fingers.”
Well, a few fingers it was, three to be exact, with the final design brilliantly mirroring that pitch.
Weinberger clearly gave it his all, but the race was largely a failure in its two-year run, particularly financially, raising $125million.
A drop in the ocean compared to the 2023 Grand Prix, which generated a net economic impact of $1.5 billion – making it the most lucrative event in Las Vegas history,
According to the man behind the event, there were two clear issues which were eliminated last year: relying on gambling income and support from the rest of the casinos.
He explained: “We thought there was an untapped market in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East with Formula 1 fans. We said look at what’s going on in Monaco.
“All these fancy people are walking up and down the street spending money like it’s water. We figured they’d probably like to come gamble at Caesars Palace. They didn’t.
“The attendance at the Grand Prix for its two Formula 1 years was never more than about 35,000. The resort corridor did not embrace the concept.
“Access to the track was through the Caesars Palace casino. It was tough for the resort corridor to get on board. Attendance itself wasn’t going to move the metre and it just did not bring in the gamblers.”
To the anger of many Vegas locals whose lives are now being impacted every year, gambling hasn’t been such a draw for modern F1, who are instead interested in TV revenue.
The penultimate race of last season kicked off with an opening ceremony that featured Kylie Minogue.
Fittingly following a 24-year absence, Sin City was the place F1 couldn’t get out of their heads.
Now following the popularity of Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and co – it looks like they’ll never have to again…
