Formula 1 Car Racing On Strip In November 2023 As Las Vegas Grand Prix Joins Miami, Austin In U.S.
By Randy Cannon for LVSportsBiz.com
Formula 1, the most prestigious form of global motorsport, is on its way to Las Vegas’ ever-expanding sports market with a 14-turn, 3.8-mile track that will include the famed Strip with cars hitting top speeds of 212 mph.
In a long-anticipated announcement on the Strip Wednesday night, F1 race promoters and Gov. Steve Sisolak announced the Las Vegas Grand Prix for a Saturday in November 2023. Sisolak said 170,000 people will visit Las Vegas for the grand prix race, and if spend an average of $3,000 each in town, that’s $500 million of spending in Las Vegas. Here are the race details:
Steve Hill, head of the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, was on hand, too, to talk about a long-term commitment between the LVCVA and F1, extending the racing program well into the future of Las Vegas. Here is the route:
It was hardly a secret. Media, pundits, and F1 fandom around the world speculated for months about an imminent F1 race that would include the Las Vegas Strip.
Sightings of Hill and other Las Vegas officials at the F1 race in Austin, TX in August 2021 fed an insatiable international rumor mill.
Closer to home, Nevada politicians from Sisolak to U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto publicly embraced the concept.
High speeds and close proximity to Las Vegas resorts will bring significant safety, construction, and revenue concerns to the Las Vegas race event.
“It’s no secret that Las Vegas has been on F1’s radar for many years, but the holdup was said to be the antagonism of the casinos to closing The Strip for a circuit,” former F1 broadcaster Bob Varsha told LVSportsBiz. “Now that that’s apparently been achieved, one of the world’s great destination cities and the world’s most spectacular motorsport will be a marriage made in heaven.
Construction is expected to close portions of the Strip for long periods during 2023, while practice, qualifying, and the race itself will close the circuit for several hours over the 2023 race weekend.
Racing along the Las Vegas Strip also recalls efforts by the organizers of the 1981-1982 Caesars Palace Grand Prix to include Las Vegas Boulevard in their circuit.
“The original thought was to have [the 1981 circuit] go out onto the Strip as part of the race,” suggested famed architect and Caesars Palace circuit designer Tony Marnell for a book on the subject, “That meant rebuilding part of the strip and that is part of a federal highway . . . Even back then there were permissions that no one was going to get in time.”
Former senior Caesars, Mirage, and Bellagio gaming executive Bruce Aguilera endured the 1981 Caesars difficulties along with architect Marnell.
Aguilera was also front and center negotiating with F1 in 1998 for a return engagement to accompany the grand opening of Steve Wynn’s Bellagio.
“I’m excited about it. What goes around comes around, even 40 years later”.“ stated Aguilera on the announcement, “I was part of Steve Wynn’s efforts in 1997 to open the Bellagio in 1998 with an F1 race. We negotiated with Bernie Ecclestone [of F1] and were going to run it through the Bellagio porte cochere. Logistics of the time period killed that deal.”
Bruce Aguilera is also optimistic that the necessary construction and event closures on the Strip and the surrounding areas are manageable.
“Running down the Strip is obviously the intriguing factor,” said Aguilera, the long-time gaming attorney, “With Frank Sinatra Drive and Sammy Davis, Jr. Drive developed now to the west, you could close off the strip and it would not be that detrimental.”
He added: “It will just be great for the whole city. “Especially because the whole city, all of the resorts, will be supporting this event, rather than just Caesars Palace like we did in the 1980’s.”
Optimism and broad support from gaming companies and area businesses will be the key to making the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix the international sporting success that eluded the 1981-1982 Caesars Palace Grand Prix.
International success for the 2023 F1 event will be measured not only at the Las Vegas casinos but also by global viewership.
“If F1 is in the pocket of Big Neon and the race definitely will be a night race,” British motorsports journalist Josh Wilcock said, “Saturday is definitely preferable for those of us over in Europe as we’ll have the rest of Sunday to recover from a 3 am start time.”
Unlike the 1980’s, the international motorsport series will also be competing for viewership – and parking spaces, fans and ticket sales – with other major league sports attractions in Las Vegas.
Both the NHL Vegas Golden Knights and NFL Las Vegas Raiders will be in season during the race weekend of the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Further, the race course will speed past T-Mobile Arena and be not too far from Allegiant Stadium.
After 40 long years in the desert, the F1 gods have once again smiled down upon Las Vegas.
Randy Cannon is the author of the book, Stardust International Raceway: Motorsports Meets The Mob in Vegas, 1965 – 1971
