With year two of the Las Vegas Grand Prix complete, officials are looking to the future of the mega event being held annually in Southern Nevada. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) and Formula One parent company Liberty Media entered into an initial three-year contract for the race from 2023-2025. The two sides will now work on a new contract, local media reports indicate, one likely longer than the current deal, according to LVCVA President and CEO Steve Hill.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the original deal came about because of all the unknowns of what it would take to host a race on the 3.8-mile street circuit, which includes an over 1-mile portion of Las Vegas Boulevard. The first three years were designed to allow for the LVCVA and F1 to figure out how they could stage race weekends successfully, before committing to a longer-term contract.
LVCVA President and CEO Steve Hill
“We’ll look to have something a little more permanent in place,” Hill said. “We’ll probably start that conversation shortly after the first of the year and probably look to have something in place prior to the race happening next year.”
To sell their vision to area leaders, Las Vegas Grand Prix CEO Renee Wilm said that F1 and Las Vegas Grand Prix officials promised to deliver one of the biggest spectacles the city has ever seen. With that promise now realized, F1 and race officials are excited about the future of the Las Vegas race.
Las Vegas Grand Prix improves for second edition
After a rocky first year because of major paving operations before the race and track issues causing a delay, the second race weekend went more smoothly leading up to and during Saturday night’s race, which was won by Britain’s George Russell.
Las Vegas Grand Prix CEO Renee Wilm
“We could not be more proud of the way we put Las Vegas on a global stage,” Wilm said. “The town was electric. The race was a smashing success. It was just an overall better experience for everyone, out-of-towners and local residents. We learned so much in year one that we were able to apply in year two.”
Learning from the first year of the race, officials came up with a better way to set up the circuit, by limiting lane restrictions and road closures more this time around, Hill said.
“We shortened the time it takes to close the track and reopen it,” Hill said. “Last year we were reopening the track at 6 in the morning and this year we’re opening the track again at 2 in the morning. Those types of things got better this year in a really big way.”
Leading up to the race, Jeremy Aguero, principal analyst of Applied Analysis, said the weekend’s economic impact would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars range. That, he said, would put it on pace to be the second-biggest weekend of 2024, behind only February’s Super Bowl at Allegiant Stadium. Las Vegas Grand Prix officials said Sunday that paid attendance for this year’s race reached 306,000.
Original article: https://www.yogonet.com/international/news/2024/11/27/86619-f1-lvcva-aim-for-a-longerterm-deal-for-las-vegas-grand-prix-annual-race
