Ben Hunt: Did Las Vegas hit the right notes with its difficult second album?

The second instalment of the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix was crucial to get right, so was it a success or has Liberty Media’s gamble for a race in Sin City backfired?

As any musician will testify, the second album is often the hardest to make.

The pressure to deliver a creative product the that exceeds expectations can often be the undoing of many artists as their musical career bombs.

The same can be said for F1 races. After the initial hype of being the latest bright shiny attraction, selling tickets the second time around can often prove tricky, especially when the first offering received such mixed reviews.

The inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix was released to a tough crowd. Cynical at F1’s attempts to cash in on the championship’s new-found popularity, the local residents and businesses of Las Vegas bemoaned road closures, traffic and the fact famous landmarks were obscured from view to accommodate the track.

In Europe, many scoffed at the prices for tickets - the hospitality packages in particular received much of the focus in the lead-up to the race in 2023.

As for that grand prix itself, it suffered so much negative PR in the run-up, it was perhaps not a surprise that it continued throughout the weekend.

There were the delayed sessions times, already late at night and pushed even further back after Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari hoovered up a loose drain cover.

The drivers were mixed in their feelings for the 2023 Las Vegas GP. Some were positive, others such as Max Verstappen used a football analogy and said that while Monaco was Champions League the race in Vegas was “National League” with a reference to non-league football in the English football pyramid.

The drivers were also placed out of their comfort zone as they were paraded in front of this new audience like prized cattle. It was over the top and gaudy. All rather Las Vegas.

But that said, the actual race was entertaining and the Saturday evening was sold out.

For the 2024 instalment the promoters expressed a willingness to learn from their mistakes and make improvements.

For the F1 fraternity who move from track to track, the smallest improvements can result in a large uptick in morale. For instance, the fact the practice sessions were marginally shifted forward a few hours, thankfully coupled with no delays due to loose drain covers, meant that staff felt noticeably better on Saturday race day than they did 12 months ago when they were running on empty.

However, races are not run for staff wellbeing but for profit, and questions must be asked about decisions Liberty Media made as it hosted its own GP.

Last Thursday, as part of a select group of journalists, Autosport was invited to The Chalet hospitality at the top of the pit building. It was lavishly decorated and adjacent to a well-stocked bar and multiple food stations attended by an army of chefs. The number of attentive staff outweighed the number of guests by about three to one. There was also an ice rink, which served no purposeful reason other than to be ostentatious.

Sat in the hospitality during the FP2 session, the adjacent grandstands were empty. A photo posted on my social media account showed rows of empty seats, but the comments were most fascinating.

When F1 travels to circuits that have a long tradition of motorsport, by and large, the fans are well-versed in who is who and want to savour every moment of seeing an F1 car on track. But in this new market, the reaction was different. People were, rightly so, pointing out that this was practice and indeed pointless. Why would you spend money going to the Las Vegas GP as a new fan of F1 to see uncompetitive running?

The US is a country that consumes live competitive sport, so why would watching practice make sense?

It is a fair point and one that perhaps Liberty Media had not considered.

The other aspect is that the race weekend in Vegas is shifted forward a day, so the race is on a Saturday, but there is no viable explanation as to why the race is on a Saturday night. It makes it trickier if people are working, thus ruling them out of watching on Thursday, especially knowing that Thanksgiving is coming up the following week will eat into precious holidays.

As with 2023, the attendance on Thursday was low, but it was pleasing to see it ramp up on Friday and Saturday. There was a noticeable increase in people who had travelled for the weekend and the F1 fans were easily identifiable by the sheer volume of merchandise.

The official F1 shop located in the Venetian hotel had queues that ran for 30 minutes - make no mistake, this is big business for F1 and showed that fans in America are keen to engage with the series.

Yes, ticket prices are high, but given the race was a complete sell out then it proves that Liberty Media is doing something right.

But there are some key questions that need addressing, which would make the Las Vegas GP an even better event.

Firstly, why was it not a location for a sprint race? After all, if you wanted a way to create interest over the three days, boosting ticket sales in the process, then surely putting on a sprint is the obvious solution. Why stick with the same format as traditional races when this was a new market, and would be perfect for Liberty’s own concept?

Another question for consideration is why make the race a back-to-back, or indeed in this case a triple-header with Qatar and Abu Dhabi?

Triple-headers should not even be for debate in my opinion, given the demands of a 24-race calendar. To package this GP on the west of the USA, with two further races in the Middle East in consecutive weeks, is brutal on everyone working in F1 due to a half-a-day time swing before you’ve even made the 20-hour journey from one to the other. It is simply not sustainable.

Finally, and there seems to be no good reason for this, but why does everything happen so late? A 10pm race equates to team packing equipment away at 5am in what is an inconceivably long day before the aforementioned travel to Qatar.

The roads are already shut off from traffic earlier in the day and if it was because the organisers want a night race, it is dark at 6pm. The 10pm start is simply too late and has a negative knock-on effect of elongating working days. It is not as if the time zone works for TV audiences either. It is too late for the US and too early for Europe.

It is not just my view either; Vegas race winner George Russell said the fact it is a back-to-back, plus the timing of the sessions, was something he identified as a problem.

“It's not great timing at all for the people who are here in the moment. But we're 20 drivers, let's say 4,000 people who do all the F1 races collectively and there's tens of millions of people who watch at home,” he said.

“So I'd probably say having it back-to-back with Qatar is the biggest challenge. If we have a week off afterwards, I'd say that's probably the only thing realistically that would help.”

Sainz agreed with Russell in rethinking Vegas’ position on the calendar as a back-to-back race: “I think it's been a step forward compared to last year. I feel like last year, F1, if anything, was trying a bit too hard to put on too much of a show. It got a bit too much away from Formula 1 and too much into Vegas style. I feel like this year we've just been just more normal doing our own thing and it's been a success. It just shows the Formula 1 product works and you don't need to try too hard.”

And the Ferrari man also agreed that a shift in the race schedule would be a positive change to those working long hours.

“I'd bring the race a couple hours earlier if I could. I think it would help everyone in the paddock, everyone that does the job in this sport, I think, would put everyone in a healthier, better mood through the weekend,” he explained.

“So a couple of hours early race and timings and not a back-to-back with Qatar. That's what I would ask everyone as the next step. For the rest, great circuit to put on a good race, great for overtaking, challenging track. I wouldn't change anything, just those two details.”

The true impact of the Vegas weekend will be felt this week on those weary team members in Qatar.

It is obvious that the Las Vegas GP offers F1 plenty of opportunities and it can absolutely be a smash hit, but it needs refinement, which is at odds with the mentality of Sin City and how it does things its own way.

Vegas has huge potential to be a massive success with drivers, teams and the fans. The second instalment was better than the first, but the fear is that, despite all those voices calling for a change, rather like a terrible second album, nobody will listen.