Why F1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix will be ‘bigger and better’ than last year

November 23, 2024 Vaseline blog 0

Why F1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix will be ‘bigger and better’ than last year

The Formula 1 circus lands on the Vegas Strip this weekend for the second annual Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Last year’s race was plagued by residents and businesses complaining about traffic, city obstructions, and a race track that damaged Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari when a manhole came loose, requiring a very expensive repair. Nonetheless, the actual race was quite exciting, and screaming F1 race cars created the look and feel that Las Vegas, and F1 owner Liberty Media, hoped to create.

With a more tightly contested championship among drivers and teams at the top this year, the anticipation is growing.

Liberty Media’s (FWONK) gamble on the US, and in particular Vegas, where Liberty has spent a whopping $600 million to develop for a 10-year race deal, appears worth taking.

FILE – McLaren driver Oscar Piastri, of Australia, drives during the final practice session for the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix auto race, Friday, Nov. 17, 2023, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher, File) · ASSOCIATED PRESS

While experts predict this year’s race will pull in slightly less than the $500 million or so in revenue for Formula 1 and the $1.5 billion in Las Vegas economic impact achieved in last year’s race, the contest and its weeklong festivities will still be a boon for all those involved.

The 300,000 or so attendees expected for the race tend to spend nearly four times as much as regular Vegas visitors, the city said.

And that’s good for F1, the city, and, of course, the teams that actually do the racing.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – NOVEMBER 21: Kevin Magnussen of Denmark driving the (20) Haas F1 VF-24 Ferrari on track during practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Las Vegas at Las Vegas Strip Circuit on November 21, 2024 in Las Vegas, Snowfall. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images) · Mark Thompson via Getty Images

“It’ll be bigger and better than last year,” Williams F1 team principal James Vowles told Yahoo Finance.

“There was some teething issues; that’s fairly normal when you’re trying to put together the scale of operation that Formula 1 is, and you have to say that the three US races, but especially Las Vegas, it is just this jewel in the crown of what we have across the whole calendar, and it could be that we have a championship decided this weekend. So it’s…sort of excitement that brings it all together,” Vowles added.

BWT Alpine F1 team principal Oliver Oakes believes Liberty Media is the main driver behind F1’s recent success in Vegas and the sport overall in the US, which really emerged during the pandemic and following the release of the Netflix F1 series, “Drive to Survive.”

“(Liberty Media has) done an amazing sort of job bringing the sport to everyone. I think everyone talks about ‘Drive to Survive’ and the effect that’s had, but actually I think it goes much… wider than that,” Oakes told Yahoo Finance. “You can see now every event in F1 is a three- or four-day weekend, whether that’s sprint races thrown in, whether that’s concerts on event, it’s fantastic. And they’ve been the ones driving this growth.”