How F1 Defied The Odds And Early Troubles To Turn The Las Vegas Grand Prix Into A Major Success

Formula 1 enters its final triple header of the season with Lando Norris having turned the tables in the race for the drivers' title with McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri.

The Briton will take a 24-point advantage into the Las Vegas Grand Prix after timely victories in Mexico and Brazil, while Red Bull's Max Verstappen continues to linger in the shadows, ready to pounce on any dramas for the Papaya duo.

While they prepare to resume battle, Las Vegas is busy preparing for its third race since returning to the calendar for the 2023 season. Very much a modern crown jewel of the calendar, with the glamour and star power of the Las Vegas Boulevard, lined with the hotel and casino monoliths dominating the skyline, it has already become a destination grand prix.

But the road has been far from smooth to reach this point so early on in its stay on the schedule. So how did F1 defy the odds and make the race work?

In an exclusive interview with Grand Prix on SI ahead of the 2025 event, Las Vegas Grand Prix president Emily Prazer described the journey from idea to reality and what the future holds in Nevada.

Location, location, location

Las Vegas Sphere, Las Vegas Grand Prix | Las Vegas Grand Prix, Inc

“We had always looked at two markets as core strategic markets for F1," Prazer begins.

“I started in F1 in 2017, just as Liberty bought F1 and they were very vocal about growing in the United States and growing in Asia.

“When I was in the race promotion team, my two focuses were managing the relationships with each race promoter and also making sure we were thoughtful about where we were going racing.

“So there was kind of a wishlist of where we should go and at the time, led by Chase and Sean, who are both American, they were very convinced that having more races in the US was something that we should be doing.

“The focus was very much on Miami initially, it took a little while to get done, but it eventually did get done, and as soon as that gained momentum, it kind of went ‘right, where are we going next, so it pivoted to the Vegas conversation."

Emily Prazer, F1 — F1 CCO and Las Vegas Grand Prix president Emily Prazer | Las Vegas Grand Prix, Inc

But then F1, and indeed the entire world, was dealt a stumbling block. The COVID-19 pandemic hit, and almost everything ground to a halt.

The championship itself was forced to drastically alter its calendar, shortening it to 17 races with the help of double headers at the same circuits, new and returning venues such as Mugello and the Nurburgring assisting, while other venues were unable to be reached.

Planning for a race in Las Vegas was hit and “a little slower initially than anticipated," though all parties involved were given the time and space to push forward with plans.

It turned out to be somewhat “perfect timing” for discussions, with Vegas open to new ventures and opportunities to help recover from “being shut down for as long as it had been”, making it a perfect match for a championship also set to stabilize after two years of disruption.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull, COVID 2020 — Max Verstappen, Red Bull | Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool

“We needed a list of who we needed to speak to in the state of Nevada to get this to happen,” Prazer adds.

“Everyone from the governor to the county commission, which is Clark County, obviously the casinos along with a company called R&R Partners who have been LVCVA marketing firm, and the LVCVA of course - and it is probably one of the races with the majority of the conversations needing to be with multiple stakeholders because every other race we go to, the government funds it and we just turn up and we are on the same page.

“In this regard, there were so many people we needed to talk to. And every meeting we ended up having was a different conversation about track layouts and operational logistics - we didn’t really get into the commercial side because the reality was that you had a map and you were like ‘where are we racing’."

The setting was important given F1's previous failings at the location. Its foray into the Caesars Palace car park in the early 1980s was uninspired and ultimately short-lived.

Caesars Palace, COVID | Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY NETWORK

“One of the things we acknowledged from day one was that we were not going to have a race in Las Vegas unless we were going to race down Las Vegas Boulevard because that is the spectacle, that is the hero shot, that is the destination marketing that we need, and so we started those conversations," Prazer insisted.

“We got exemptions to travel to the United States because of Austin, so we were having those conversations and meeting in September and October time of 2021. By March 2022, we had announced it.

“It is the only race that Liberty put some money into and that Formula 1 owns and operates. So a very, very different model. I don’t think we would have got the trust of the community here, related to those stakeholders I mentioned, if it wasn’t promoted by F1 and Liberty themselves.”

F1's "organized chaos"

Las Vegas Grand Prix | Las Vegas Grand Prix, Inc

The Las Vegas GP stands out on the schedule for a key reason: it is the only race to be organized and promoted by F1 itself, a point that created a multitude of barriers in the initial phases of creating the event.

“It was tricky," Prazer concedes. “When we announced, we didn’t own the land or have the building.

“There were a couple of things: We didn’t want to pivot from being down Las Vegas Boulevard and we didn’t want it to be a boring track.

“So if you look at the racing, it is incredibly fast - the most overtakes in the sport. I think that was the biggest surprise for everyone, that the racing is so good.

“As we started building it all out, we had to come up with a substantial amount of money quite quickly to build that [pit/paddock] building.

“So we get the approval, we announce - and then it turns into ‘Emily, do you want to live in Las Vegas and set this up’, obviously with tons of help.

“We phoned our friends at the Wynn and said ‘we don’t have an office yet, can we use your office?’ So they gave us an office for the first six months which was quite surreal, and then the takeaway is that F1 is 75 years old this year but we were very much a 75-year-old startup.

“Don’t get me wrong, we had no staff, no database, no printer paper, nothing. We had to build a business from scratch whilst having 18 months to build one of the most complicated race tracks on the calendar.

“Everything from buying the land, building the building - one of the funniest meetings I remember in the last four years was choosing the tiles for the toilets in the Paddock Club, from that through to making sure we understood the track layout, where the grandstands should go, the complexity of opening and closing the track every few hours - which is very unique to this destination.

“It was organized chaos, I guess was the best way to describe it."

Las Vegas Grand Prix 2023 | Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images

After all the anticipation, the first Las Vegas GP was hit with substantial issues that cast doubt on the event after just two practice sessions.

To start with, world champion Max Verstappen branded the event "1% sport, 99% entertainment" before criticizing the pre-race opening ceremony, though the Dutchman had changed his tune and was singing Elvis' Viva Las Vegas by the end of the weekend.

On track, a red flag just minutes into first practice was triggered by Carlos Sainz's Ferrari stopping on the circuit. A drain cover on the Las Vegas Blvd hadn't been fastened correctly, and when sucked up by the extreme downforce of the Scuderia's car, the chassis and energy store had been destroyed — the Spaniard fortunately escaping injury.

What followed didn't help. FP1 never got going again as each drain cover around the circuit had to be inspected, while Ferrari and Mercedes team principals Fred Vasseur and Toto Wolff played a part in a memorable press conference — the Frenchman understandably furious, though Wolff was quick to vehemently defend the new event.

"I must really say that the job that Liberty has done is phenomenal, considering that this was over two years," Wolff said at the time.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

"I think this was a construction site here a year ago. And then to pull that off, you really need to take your hat off."

FP2 was delayed by two and a half hours as the inspection continued and extended by 30 minutes to a run-time of 90, putting F1 up against it to make sure the public roads could be handed back over for public use throughout the day.

The biggest issue was that spectators had to vacate their vantage points, essentially seeing no on-track running, a decision made after the delays ensured it wasn’t operationally safe nor feasible for fan zones to remain open.

“We got through year one, it was tough. Everyone knows we had some issues but we have come around and much more comfortable," Prazer says.

“Year two was very smooth operationally, I think everyone is starting to understand it and now coming into the third year, adjusting the time of the race and making it a little easier on the working staff, the drivers etcetera - 10 p.m. was just a bit too late.

“Building the programming - we showed in year one and two that we know how to put on an event, we know how to put on a spectacle and now it is just about finessing it to make sure we take those learnings.

“When we first got here we had nothing and so it has been a very quick journey into building the business and building the event as well as we could.”

F1 tackles its biggest challenge

Las Vegas Grand Prix fan zone | Las Vegas Grand Prix, Inc

To the event's credit, from the Saturday in 2023 onwards, things have run smoothly with the learnings taken from those issues bolstering the organizational firepower F1 had already put to use.

There were other things to learn, though, such as nailing down the race's target market and tailoring the experience more to that audience.

“Two of the biggest things we didn’t have a handle on were the audience that wanted to attend this race and so we spent a lot of time making the race more accessible to a wider audience through ticket pricing, flexible payment plans and different products.

“Year one, we skewed heavily towards high-end hospitality, but now we have found a much better balance and feel very good about the general product mix at the event and what we are putting on."

That is a point proven by ticket sales that Prazer revealed have been trending 50% up in 2024.

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— F1 Academy (@f1academy) November 11, 2025

The weekend timetable has also been expanding over time: "The programming inside of it - year one we didn’t have a support race, last year we added Ferrari [Challenge], and this year we have added F1 Academy, which we are really proud of.

“But the challenge is the expectation of everyone: We are F1 and we are the promoter, and so there is a genuine ‘let’s have a look at them and see how they do it’.

“So it is continuing to put on this world-class event and being innovative around the product, hospitality, the programming - not just the programming as in the racing but the entertainment around it.

“It is an American race through and through, so how do we make sure to program the destination the way that you see the Super Bowl do? This year we have added official after parties, we have the business summit at the Wynn on the Thursday afternoon and all of these elements around it.

“You will see that the spectacle side of it is continuing to be pushed. We use Vegas as sort of a test bed for doing some other things in our sport.

“So pushing collaborations and merchandising events around it, which is what we are now looking to do at other grands prix so I feel very good about what we are doing here, not just because of Vegas but because of the dual role I have around F1, it gives me the opportunity to test it and show Stefano and others that we can do it and then role things out globally.

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— Peloton (@onepeloton) November 14, 2025

“If you look at the F1 Live event at the beginning of the year, I don’t think the business would have had the confidence to let us run an event of that magnitude if we hadn’t been putting on Vegas for the last few years.

“So you can see the transition of what we are trying to do as the rights holder as well as learning how to manage the promoter business.”

As Prazer mentions, a lot of resources have been focused on the main 'Grand Prix Plaza' building that lies adjacent to the start-finish straight that has become the focal point of Las Vegas' F1 offering. The building is open to the public year-round, not just during the race weekend, and is intended to capitalize on the sport's recent advances in the US market.

“It is a beautiful building. It is absolutely stunning and versatile.

“It is not a competitive product to anything - our casino partners are working on it.

“So this year, we turned it into a destination in its own right. It is completely themed as Formula 1, you will go in there and know exactly what you’re looking at.

First look at Grand Prix Plaza, opening on May 2.📍@F1LasVegas pic.twitter.com/V5DeTbYpr9
— Las Vegas (@Vegas) March 29, 2025

“The benefit of being one road away from Las Vegas Blvd is very beneficial. We built a merchandise stall, we have simulators there, we built a restaurant which we affectionately named Fuel and Fork, with F1-themed food.

“We built a proposition called F1 X, which is an F1 experience in partnership with our friends at F1 Exhibition - we have done those types of things outside of this destination.

“We worked with them to create something that has the nod to the history of the sport, which is what they do really really well and we created some immersive elements like designing your own F1 car, so you pick the sponsors, the colors, you get a projection map which will put your car design onto a car and you get to have a photo with it.

“Pit walls, pit stop challenges, where you have the backdrop of the LVGP, a 4G cinema experience.

“We have built it into an immersive, three-hour proposition where people can really come and learn about our sport. We are acutely aware that the US is still a fairly new market for Formula 1 and we have acquired an amazing foundation with the likes of Drive to Survive and now the Movie.

“But we need a way to keep them excited and continue to talk to them about what we are, who we are, and about the sport, just to explain the strategy side of it and the complexion that perhaps isn’t the same as some other major league sports."

Three makes a [friendly] crowd

When the Las Vegas GP joined the calendar, it became the third active US-based event alongside the Miami GP and Austin's US GP.

With the races relatively spaced out across the year and F1's focus on continuing to grow the sport in the country, Prazer explains there have been plenty of mutual benefits to working together, rather than against each other.

“Each of the events has its very obvious identities. You know you are in Miami - if you don’t know you are at the Hard Rock Stadium at that race, then you’ve missed a trick with the volume of crossover and color schemes.

“The same goes for Austin, and you know it is a true race track. You can’t take that away from them and credit to Austin because they thought about this before half of us were even in the sport, so they have been incredibly patient and really helped to build it in the US to get to where it has.

“But you go to Austin and you know it is about cowboy boots and barbecue, so again, you know where you are. They were ahead of the game when it came to weekend entertainment and spectacle, so we learnt a lot from them.

“In my previous role as part of the F1 race promotion team, I was a part of bringing Miami to the calendar and they were teaching us stuff - we didn’t know we were doing Vegas at the time - but seeing how they were talking about product and knowing how to sell in this particular market, it was incredible to learn from them.

“Ticket sales, organization, and hospitality is one of the best in class organizations, not just in the NFL but I would say the world. So they have been very collaborative, and we have worked very closely with them.

“I think they are all immediately identifiable, and we will for sure speak to each other and help each other, not just in the US but across the calendar. There are a couple of races that I specifically spent a lot of time with when I was in that team that has taught me how to do the majority of what I do.

“The likes of Singapore, when I first went there, my jaw hit the floor at how incredible that race is. The home of the night race and it taught us about how to use the lighting.

“You take these learnings from each of the different promoters and make sure you really learn from their mistakes because they have been doing it a lot longer, but also champion those successes. We all borrow ideas from each other, it is a very close-knit community.”

There were conundrums that the other races couldn't help with, for example, getting permission to incorporate The Sphere into the circuit's boundaries.

Charles Leclerc, Vegas 2024, Sphere | Las Vegas Grand Prix, Inc

"We came to Vegas and we were like ‘ok, how do we lean into the Vegas spectacle’," she adds. “The backdrop is the backdrop, there is not much we need to enhance that - everyone would have seen the photos.

“But we had to go and negotiate with The Sphere before it was even built to race on their land and use their exo-sphere. I think it is a very unique part of our race track."

Wolff said at the first Las Vegas GP that "it’s going to become a fixture, and I think an important fixture for the sport." Much like The Sphere at Turns 7, 8 and 9, the race is here to stay and it is clear it will only get bigger and better.

The 2025 Las Vegas GP kicks off on the night of November 20, with the race taking place on November 22.

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