Formula 1 team principals hailed the new Las Vegas Grand Prix as a success but several acknowledged the schedule placed extreme demands on their staff.
The series returned to the city or the first time in over four decades last weekend. Despite a faltering start as the first night practice was badly disrupted, the race was widely acclaimed as one of the best of the year.
F1 took the rare step of investing in the race and promoting it directly. Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said they raised the bar for future rounds.
“On the show and the event and so on I think it was mega,” he said. “This will be probably a new standard for the F1 and honestly I appreciate it.
“Now, we were all a bit scared about the sporting side, but it was also probably the best race of the season. It means that overall it’s a mega-good event.”
However Vasseur, like many involved in the event, said the decision to hold the track sessions late at night made the schedule extremely demanding. The race started at 10pm and qualifying was held at midnight. The postponed second practice session eventually began at 2:30am and ran until four in the morning.
The late times came about because the roads used for the street track had to be reopened in between sessions. But running late at night in America’s Pacific Time Zone meant the track action took place at inconvenient times for F1 fans further east in Europe, as well as on the east coast of the USA.
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Vasseur said addressing that will be difficult. “If we have to improve, perhaps the timing,” he said. “It’s not an easy one to find if you want to have decent timing for Asia, Europe, east coast, west coast.
“In the past we had no issue because F1 was just for the European people and we had to stick to the European timing and it was okay. Now it’s a worldwide project and it’s much more difficult to find something fitting with the expectations of the 24-hour zone. But we will adjust it.”
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff agreed the event schedule was the one aspect of an otherwise successful new event which needed to be addressed.
“We’re looking at it now after the race and lots of the things that were said look a little bit out of proportion or too negative because we are leaving Las Vegas after a great weekend,” said Wolff. “Great racing in the front, the spectacle was mega.
“I think it will have increased…
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