The date of next year’s Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix has been all but confirmed after a letter was leaked online.
The race will be held on November 18, confirming what Speedcafe.com reported in March that it would mark the sport’s first Saturday race in more than 30 years.
The event date came to light on social media courtesy of a letter to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors authority.
It details a 22:00 local time race start, which translates to 17:00 AEDT (Sunday).
Las Vegas is tipped to be the penultimate round of the 2023 season, a week prior to the finale in Abu Dhabi.
The Las Vegas event marks a significant departure from Formula 1’s established commercial model, with the sport set to self-promote.
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Typically, promoter fees contribute a significant portion of the sport’s annual income, with each event injecting somewhere in the region of $70 million (some more, some less).
In this instance, Liberty Media will be the event promoter.
It has acquired property for the project, upon which the pit and paddock structures will be constructed.
According to Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media, owner of the sport’s commercial rights, the business is also ramping up the number of staff employed in conjunction to both the event and facility.
“Our goal was to have a facility which is not only magnificent for the race, but has the opportunity to be an ongoing activation, have ongoing activations and events at that facility, even when the race is not underway,” he said.
“The site programme is there, we’re just almost 16 months to go,” added Stefano Domenicali, F1’s CEO.
“It’s important that we are working very hard in driving engagement and getting the new city excited for Formula 1.
“So we’re going to come back to the detail with all the plans that we have in order to make sure that – we want to bring F1 to life with emotion, passion, that is really important, to increase the level of engagement that we expect from Vegas city.”
While a full calendar is not set to be released until early October, it’s expected Bahrain will start the 2023 campaign in early March before then heading to Saudi Arabia.
The Australian Grand Prix will be Round 3 of the season, though the date there looks to have softened.
Two dates were initially put forward to local promoters, March 26 and April 2, with the former understood to have been the firm favourite.
However, well placed sources have suggested F1 is now leaning towards the latter, a move that brings with it added complications such as daylight savings and more.
South Africa is not expected to appear on the calendar, despite efforts to return the sport to the country for the first time since 1993.
Domenicali also all but confirmed next season would include 24 races, two up from this season.
“We for sure expect to say, I would say, a couple of races more than this year, but less than 25, that’s for sure.”
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