F1 week visitors spend $500m+ at Vegas Grand Prix

Sainz, Ferrari, Ricciardo, AlphaTauri, 2023, Las Vegas — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

F1 week visitors spend $500m+ at Vegas Grand Prix

Visitors help bring $500m+ extra dollars to Vegas economy

Originally written by Shay Rogers. This version is a translation.

Monday 5 February 2024 19:57

Visitors of Las Vegas during Formula 1’s inaugural weekend spent $561 million according to a preliminary economic impact report released on Wednesday.

The event – which ran between 15-18 November, helped to attract at least 115,000 people to the area, spending a whopping half a billion dollars in the process according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

While six sessions were set to be staged on the strip, one was prematurely cut short after Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz ran over a manhole cover during FP2.

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The Spaniard was later forced to take a penalty for his troubles, despite the incident being no fault of his own – hurting Ferrari’s chances in the fight for second place in the constructors' standings at the time.

Fans splurge while F1 in town

Officials have pointed out that the findings are early projections, with other spending factors set to take the sum above $1.2 billion when further details are released ‘in a few weeks,’ F1 said.

The recently appointed chief operating officer of the Las Vegas Grand Prix Inc, Betsy Fretwell, told the Review-Journal that tax revenue generated by tourists helps to take pressure off residents to pay for public services.

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