After a brief layoff, Formula 1 returns to action this weekend.
With the third installment of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. F1 returned to Sin City for the 2023 season to much fanfare, with a night race featuring the historic Vegas Strip added to the calendar. As we noted at the time, it was not the sport’s first foray into the desert, as the short-lived Caesars Palace Grand Prix was on the F1 schedule for both the 1981 and the 1982 seasons.
But now the sport has a new home in Las Vegas, and the layout has offered up some inspired racing over the past two seasons.
Here are four key storylines ahead of this year’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
The Drivers’ Championship
The major storyline facing F1 this week, as it has been for the past few months, is the fight at the top of the Drivers’ Championship standings.
Thanks to back-to-back wins in Mexico City and São Paulo, Lando Norris has taken control of the title race. The British driver now leads the way with 390 points, with his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri sitting in second place with 366. Max Verstappen, the four-time Drivers’ Champion, sits third with 341 points.
Those three drivers are the only drivers with a mathematical chance of taking home the title. Results at the São Paulo Grand Prix eliminated George Russell from title contention.
As we noted last week, Norris cannot clinch the title in Las Vegas. Even if the McLaren driver were to win this weekend — and see both Piastri and Verstappen finish outside the points — Piastri would remain alive for at least one more race weekend. The earliest Norris could theoretically clinch his first Drivers’ Championship would come at the F1 Sprint race at the Qatar Grand Prix.
However, Las Vegas has not been the strongest of tracks for McLaren. Even at the end of the 2023 season, as they rocketed up the standings, Norris crashed out on the third lap and suffered his first DNF of the season, while Piastri settled for a P10 finish.
Verstappen took home the win in the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Then last year, as McLaren was battling for the Constructors’ Championship, Verstappen finished ahead of both Piastri and Norris. His fifth-place finish was enough to clinch his fourth consecutive Drivers’ Championship, as Norris finished sixth and Piastri seventh.
We’ll see if Las Vegas gives Verstappen, or Piastri, the chance to fight back after a strong stretch from Norris.
The battle for P2 in the Constructors’
While the fight between Norris, Piastri, and Verstappen dominates the headlines a similar battle is taking place in the Constructors’ Championship standings.
For most of the season, Mercedes and Ferrari have swapped P2 behind McLaren, who already clinched the Constructors’ Championship back at the Singapore Grand Prix. But the run of form from Verstappen since the Summer Shutdown, which brought him back into the Drivers’ Championship mix, has pulled Red Bull within striking distance in this race, turning it into a three-way fight.
A strong weekend from Mercedes in São Paulo — where Kimi Antonelli finished second in the Grand Prix while Russell finished fourth — moved the Silver Arrows to 398 points, putting Mercedes into a strong position in this chase. Verstappen’s recovery drive from P19 up to P3, along with a dismal weekend for Ferrari, helped Red Bull move into second with 366 points.
Ferrari is in third with 362.
This could be another strong week for Mercedes. Last year Russell took the win in Las Vegas, with then-teammate Lewis Hamilton finishing just behind him in second as Mercedes locked out the front row. In recent seasons their challengers have been strong in cooler conditions (more on the weather in a moment) and they could be on the front foot yet again.
Of course, Red Bull has Verstappen to call upon, and the four-time Drivers’ Champion won the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix back in 2023, and clinched that fourth title last year by finishing fifth in this race. He could also be on the front foot this weekend, but complicating matters for Red Bull in the Constructors’ Championship standings is the fact that Verstappen is largely shouldering the entire load. Of Red Bull’s 366 points Verstappen has accounted for 341 of those, a staggering 93%.
Only Pierre Gasly, who has scored all 22 of Alpine’s points this season, has accounted for a higher percentage of his team’s points.
As for Ferrari, well, if you have a member of the Tifosi in your life, check in on them.
F1 Rookies taking on the Las Vegas Strip
Four rookies — Antonelli, Isack Hadjar, Gabriel Bortoleto, and Oliver Bearman — are set to tackle the Las Vegas Strip Circuit for the first time.
The layout (which yes looks like Spider Pig, we’ve all seen it) contains just 17 turns, as well as two DRS zones. The long run from Turn 12 to Turn 14, as the drivers rocket past down Las Vegas Boulevard, is where the fastest speeds of the race are reached. In fact, Alexander Albon delivered the fastest recorded speed of the entire 2024 season in this race a year ago, hitting 229 miles per hour.
That stretch is taken largely full-out, and when he hit 229 last year it was not only the fastest recorded speed of the season, but the fastest in F1 since the 2019 campaign.
All four young drivers have impressed this season, and now they’ll get a chance to take on the circuit that delivers hair-raising speeds while looking like Spider Pig.
Cooler temperatures
Each F1 race weekend teams, drivers, and fans alike wonder if the weather will play a role.
This week’s Las Vegas Grand Prix is no different, but instead of wondering about rain, everyone is wondering about the temperatures.
The inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix brought concerns about cold weather and difficulties firing up the tires to get them into the right operating windows. Ahead of that race I spoke with Valtteri Bottas about what role cold temperatures play on the track. “Especially with long straights, you kind of start to lose that surface temperature of the tire and that can make the braking quite difficult, before you pick up the temperature again,” described Bottas to me back in 2023.
I also spoke with McLaren CEO Zak Brown ahead of the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix, and he shared his thoughts on what cooler temperatures mean for the tires.
“It’ll be a real challenge to turn on the tires, but Pirelli is ready for that, it’ll be the same challenge for everyone,” added Brown. “So as long as it doesn’t get into the 30s [degree range], that’s when you have a real challenge, I think as long as we stay in the 40s, which I think the average temperature of that time year is, about 45, it’ll just be a nice brisk night.”
As for Pirelli, F1’s exclusive tire supplier has again opted for a selection in the softer set of their range. The C3 compound will be the hard tire this weekend, with the C4 as the medium and the C5 as the softs. Pirelli chose not to include the new C6 super-soft this weekend.
Current forecasts show temperatures in the 40 to 50-degree range during race weekend, which should keep things in the range Brown outlined to me back in 2023. F1 also bumped up the start time of the Las Vegas Grand Prix by two hours this year — with the race now set to start at 8:00 p.m. local time — which should keep temperatures a little warmer.
However, if the forecast gets colder, keep an eye on where the rubber hits the road. Literally.
