Whether during a sprint format weekend or a normal weekend, there is something immutable: the races of a Grand Prix of It's Sunday. Except in one place. The Las Vegas GP is the only one on the calendar to take place on a Saturdayand therefore brings its sessions forward one day: the free practice sessions on Friday take place on Thursday afternoon there, and the qualifying sessions take place on Friday evening locally.
Yes, but for religious reasons, so as not to coincide with Ramadan. In 2025, these races and the others will take place again on Sunday, with the exception of Las Vegas. For what?
Why the Las Vegas F1 GP is taking place on Saturday in local time
In reality, it all comes down to the fact that the goal is have the largest possible number of viewers from all over the world due to the Las Vegas time zone. And the peak audience time is Saturday evening, so racing at 10 p.m. guarantees prime time coverage and makes Sunday at seven a.m. in Spain and much of Europe, a early hour but not impossible.
The city, located in the western US state of Nevada, is eight hours less than the UK and nine hours less than central Europe (Spain), so the race takes place Saturday, but local, early hours of Sunday.
Additionally, as it is a night race, If F1 maintained its traditional schedule and the start of the race had been set for 10:00 p.m. on Sunday evening, in Europe it would be Monday morning.while many fans would be working or resting to go to work, which would have become an insufficient audience, which would not be ideal. This way, by taking place 24 hours before, more people have the opportunity to see it, especially in Europe.
An argument to avoid this would also have been to hold the race at midday, which would result in 8:00 p.m. in the UK and 9:00 p.m. in Spain, but the organizers made it clear that the Las Vegas Grand Prix would be yes or no. It was going to be night time.
F1 also wanted the race to take place during the city's peak hours.when the famous horizon It lights up for the big occasion, when cars pass the iconic Strip. And if it took place a few hours earlier, in Europe, it would be at night, which would mean many people would end up watching it on delay.
It's a grand prix that F1 has been preparing for a long time, and the weekend needs as many spectators as possible. CEO of the championship, declared a year before the premiere that the category had to be flexible and that this start time made the Las Vegas GP viable for everyone.
Due to the late schedule in Las Vegas (FP1 ends at 11 p.m. local time, like qualifying), postponing a session could mean Formula 1 runs until midnight or even longer. This was already demonstrated on opening day last year. A in FP1 and . The organization had to check all the manhole covers – which are numerous in an urban circuit of 6,201 kilometers with these characteristics – and that . It only started at 2:30 a.m. local time, and the duration was increased from 60 minutes to 90 minutes. By then, there wasn't much room left: the roads were scheduled to reopen to traffic at 4 a.m. local time. In addition, . Never before has an F1 session started so late… or so early, depending on how you look at it.
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