Las Vegas
Las Vegas Strip Street Circuit
- 2025 – Max Verstappen
- 2024 – George Russell
- 2023 – Max Verstappen
- 2025 – Lando Norris
- 2024 – George Russell
- 2023 – Charles Leclerc
When was the track built?
The Las Vegas Strip Circuit was assembled for the 2023 race on existing public roads, including a long stretch of the Strip itself, with a purpose-built pit and paddock complex constructed nearby as the one permanent element. Preparation involved substantial resurfacing of the city’s roads and a barrier and fencing operation that goes up and comes down around a functioning tourist district each year. It is a temporary circuit in the fullest sense, and an unusually large logistical exercise even by street-race standards.
When was its first Grand Prix?
The first race on this layout was held in November 2023. Las Vegas had hosted Formula 1 before, in 1981 and 1982, on a very different circuit laid out in a hotel car park, an event remembered more for its oddity than its quality. The modern race is a separate proposition entirely, run late at night through the middle of the city. With only a handful of runnings so far, the form book here is thin and should be treated with caution.
What’s the circuit like?
A power circuit dressed as a street race. Long straights, including the run down the Strip, dominate the lap, so teams strip wing levels back towards Monza territory and live with the consequences in the slower corners. That produces very high top speeds and real overtaking chances into the heavy braking zones. The defining problem is temperature: the race runs late at night in the desert in November, and getting tyres and brakes into their working range is genuinely difficult. Graining and lock-ups are common. Walls are close, run-off is minimal, and the surface takes a while to rubber in.
Why go?
It is a spectacle first and a motor race second, and it does not pretend otherwise. Cars run past casinos at three hundred kilometres an hour in the small hours, the entertainment budget is conspicuous, and the city is set up for exactly this sort of thing. November nights are cold enough to need proper clothing, which surprises people. Sessions run very late, so plan your sleep accordingly. Prices are high across the board, and the atmosphere is more show business than motorsport pilgrimage, but the Strip at speed is a genuinely striking sight.
Where is the best place to watch?
The grandstands along the Strip give you the signature view of cars at full speed against the casino frontages. Stands at the end of that straight cover the heaviest braking and the most likely overtaking. The Sphere-adjacent seating and the East Harmon area offer the corner sequences where cars are actually being driven rather than just travelling fast. The main grandstand near the pit complex covers the start and pit stops. Skyboxes and hotel-view packages are plentiful if the budget stretches, though sightlines vary.