Five Things to Know About the Las Vegas GP

Formula 1 is heading back to Nevada for our final visit to the United States this season.

Racing under the neon lights down The Strip with packed grandstands and unusually cool temperatures will be quite the test for all teams and drivers.

If you didn't already know, Williams Racing have previously won in the Mojave desert. Read on below to find out more, plus four other things to know about the Las Vegas Grand Prix

If you're going to part ways with a team that you enjoyed stellar success with, there's no better way to do so than with more of the same.

Alan Jones ended his time for Williams Racing at Las Vegas in the inaugural Caesars Palace Grand Prix in 1981.

We entered the weekend with Alan just out of the championship hunt and teammate Carlos Reutemann locked in the title fight against Nelson Piquet.

Pole position in qualifying was a dream for Carlos, but he slipped back to P8 in the race to miss out on being crowned champion by a single point.

Alan, though, comfortably took his 12th F1 victory, bookending the 1981 season with P1s after winning the season-opener in Long Beach, too.

We've told you how Williams Racing boasts a pole position in Las Vegas courtesy of Carlos Reutemann and a race win thanks to Alan Jones.

Did you know we also scored a World Drivers' Championship victory one year after Alan's heroics?

Keke Rosberg headed into the 1982 season finale all but certain to clinch the crown, but he needed to either score points or hope John Watson couldn't clinch victory.

Both looked positive after qualifying, as Keke claimed a P6 start, three places ahead of his McLaren rival, but the race wasn't so kind to the flying Finn.

Watson's quick pace had him progressing through the field, eventually ascending to a P2 place and just one DNF away from the lead in a race that had nine mechanical failures.

Thankfully, Watson crossed the line in second place, and Keke brought his FW08 home in P5 to take two points, securing his sole championship title.

It seems unusual that we'll have lights out on a Saturday rather than Sunday for the 2024 Las Vegas GP, but it's far from a one-off occurrence.

Formula 1's first-ever race, the 1950 British GP, fell on a Saturday, and Britain was joined by some South African, Dutch, Spanish, and Indy 500 races to avoid a Sunday start.

Curiously, the previous two Vegas races in the early 80s also occurred on Saturdays.

Cast your minds back to the start of this season and you’ll recall that both the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix were Saturday night affairs, with the championship accommodating Ramadan.

The last Saturday race prior to the 2023 Vegas GP was the 1985 South African GP. Nigel Mansell led Keke Rosberg over the line as the pair took their FW10Bs to a 1-2 finish, lapping the field.

We were in Texas last month and had a Floridian trip to Miami back in May, making Las Vegas our third 2024 race in the United States.

That makes the ‘Land of the Free’ one of just two nations to have hosted three Grands Prix in a single season.

The USA was the first to welcome the sport for a trio of events back in 1982 — Round 3 had the United States GP West at California's Long Beach in April before June's Detroit GP and the September season finale at Caesars Palace.

In more recent memory, the pandemic-affected 2020 season meant Italy had two additional venues stepping in to create a heavily revised calendar.

A September double-header had us racing at Monza for the traditional Italian GP just before F1's only visit to Mugello for the Tuscan Grand Prix.

Imola returned to the calendar in November as the Emilia Romagna GP in what was intended to be a one-off event but has now become a recurring feature.

Then a trio of stateside races returned last season with Miami, Austin and Vegas.

The 6.201km layout of the Las Vegas Strip Circuit is pipped in length only by Spa-Francorchamps on the current calendar.

Vegas’ track is just 27m longer than the Jeddah Cornice Circuit, which clocks in as 6.174km and bills itself as the sport's fastest street circuit.

That said, the Strip Circuit is no slouch. The average speed of the current race lap record here, set by Oscar Piastri last season, is 233.779 km/h (144.779 mph). That’s just 23 km/h (14 mph) slower than the quickest average speed around 'The Temple of Speed' in Monza this season.