Formula 1’s return to the American desert, a first in more than four decades, offered up-close racing and myriad of overtakes, proving that the F1 circus and the accompanying spectacle of Las Vegas were made for each other. As the circus sets up in Sin City once again this week, teams up and down the grid won’t be leaving things up to Lady Luck for the race. They’re armed with intel and prepared for any roll of the dice Vegas has to give, including its cold, desert nights.
“Last year was the first year in Las Vegas, so the teams and drivers [now] have data and experience, which means they will start the weekend in a more familiar place,” explains Ciaron Pilbeam, technical director of performance at the Alpine F1 Team. Teams went into the latest iteration of the Las Vegas Grand Prix blind, and had to get to grips with the new track surface and cool evening temperatures on the fly.
The whole paddock this year, will be armed with terabytes worth of data on lap times, tire wear and engine performance that they’ll be hoping will hold the key to taking home the jackpot as they contend with Vegas’ unchanged evening conditions, which are expected to average around 14°C (57°F). In particular, Pilbeam says teams know a great deal more about degradation and performance of the Pirelli tires, which is vital given the low nighttime temperatures and unique layout of the Las Vegas track.
Getting caught out on track and struggling to get the soft Pirelli rubber in the right operating window reduces grip and increases the chances of graining on the surface of the tires, which further reduces performance. Thankfully, the data picked up during the 2023 race is helping strategists better understand the behaviour of the Pirelli compounds for this year’s race. It also aided in Pirelli’s 2024 tire selection, which will once again offer its softest C3, C4, and C5 compounds in an attempt to counter some of the grip that’s lost in the cooler night race conditions.
As was the case in 2023, teams may need to run an additional warm up lap in qualifying to counteract the cooler temperatures. The long straights that make up the majority of the Vegas’ circuit proved difficult for drivers to keep their tires within the operating window over the course of a lap. Additionally, limited areas like hard braking zones added vital temperature back into the tires, which led to unpredictability around strategies and pit stop windows last time out. The biggest challenges for Vegas? “Finding the right balance so you are performing in both areas,” says Sven Smeets, sporting director at Williams.
While the ambient temperature hovering around 15°C (59°F) at last year’s race caused headaches for the tire technicians and strategists, engineers monitoring the power units were much less concerned by the mercury falling.
“Cold, you could normally say, is better for performance,” says Smeets. “It's better for cooling and that means more [power unit] performance is achievable.”
During other races on the 2024 calendar, overheating engines has been a big challenge when cars are following one another closely. To combat this, teams add louvres over the engine bay to aid with cooling, which was a practice used at F1’s other night race, in Singapore, where the ambient temperature over the race weekend was 29°C (84°F). Such bodywork changes won’t be needed in Las Vegas, though, meaning there will be less disruption of the airflow over the bodywork of the cars, “there are less openings, which is always better for performance,” adds Smeets.
Other changes that will be plain to see on the cars when they roll out for Free Practice 1 will be around the aerodynamic options teams have chosen. To tackle the 3.85-mile circuit in the heart of Sin City, complete with 17 corners and lots of long straights, teams will likely run low-downforce packages featuring wing levels “something akin to Spa or Monza,” Riccardo Musconi, head of trackside performance at Mercedes, explained in one of the team’s debrief films. All this means that when the cars do hit a corner in Las Vegas, there may be much less grip and they can “slide around more than usual,” adds Pilbeam.
Think about the last time F1 raced at Germany’s Nürburgring for the 2020 Eifel Grand Prix when temperatures dropped to 7°C (44°F). Back then, cars were sliding all over the cold, damp track as they struggled for grip. Those slides can be particularly costly on a street track like Vegas, where tight corners, limited run off areas and harsh walls could spell disaster.
“The barriers are close and the likelihood of a red flag in practice and qualifying or a safety car in the race is high,” Pilbeam says. “So the teams need to be on their toes and ready to react to these situations should they arise.” Meaning if the safety car is brought out or a red flag disrupts qualifying in the same way we saw in Brazil just a few weeks ago, race fans could be in for another treat at Vegas this weekend.
