What makes Las Vegas one of F1's weirdest circuits

By its third appearance on the calendar, the Las Vegas Grand Prix should, in theory, be an event that Formula 1 teams understand.

Yet as F1 heads back to the Strip in 2025, the race remains an enigma: an artificial, neon-lit showpiece built on a circuit that refuses to behave in any way engineers can anticipate.

As the 2025 championship battle enters its final defining moments, the fickle Vegas circuit arrives at the exact moment predictability matters most for the championship protagonists.

At least for those like McLaren that, equipped with the strongest car in the field, would prefer things to be more straightforward.

But as witnessed in the past two years, McLaren is unlikely to have the luxury of certainty when the running starts at Sin City.

While the championship stakes add a big sense of urgency, there is also real intrigue in the track itself.

Vegas is the contradiction F1 can’t quite solve: a high-speed street circuit with low-grip characteristics better suited to a winter test session on cold concrete.

For a venue built to be a statement of glamour, it produces driving conditions that are oddly unglamorous, inconsistent and unforgiving.

The physics element

The root of Vegas’s weirdness lies in its asphalt and its climate. The surface is ultra-smooth and offers almost no mechanical grip, even late in the weekend.

The track is made up of a especially engineered, multi-layered surface.

During its construction phase ahead of its F1 debut in 2023, some 25cm of old pavement was removed and replaced with a highly dense base formulated for strength and durability, specifically suited for Las Vegas’s extreme desert climate.

On top of that, crews applied nearly 10cm of a unique racing-grade asphalt blend that offers exceptional smoothness, but little grip in cold conditions.

Where other circuits rubber in over time, giving drivers predictable progression, Vegas remains stubbornly slick.

The long straights are also a particular issue. Tyres lose heat during the long flat-out blasts, meaning drivers arrive into the next low-speed corner with minimal front-end bite.

The drop-off can not only be abrupt, but almost binary: either grip or no grip.

Add in the fact that the event takes place at night when temperatures can plummet by more than 10 degrees between sessions, and you get a layout that feels fundamentally unstable.

Simulations in Vegas can effectively become educated guesses, leading to unpredictable laps.

The weather variable

If there is one factor that exaggerates every quirk of the Las Vegas circuit, it’s the weather.

Unlike most late-season venues, Vegas delivers cold rather than heat, transforming both tyre behaviour and car balance.

The race takes place deep into the night, and while the desert climate looks warm on paper, temperatures can fall into the single digits by the time qualifying and the grand prix begin.

The result is a track that behaves more like an early-morning winter test.

Cold tarmac refuses to absorb or retain heat, which means tyres struggle to generate the surface temperature needed to bite into the asphalt.

The discrepancy between cold tyres and hot brakes has contributed to the understeer–snap-oversteer cycle that defined both previous editions of the race.

Track temperatures during race weekend typically sit around 12C by the time the lights go out, making Vegas a moving target.

A conflicting layout

On paper, the circuit layout looks quite straightforward: a series of long, flat-out straights punctuated by tight, stop-start corners.

In practice, however, the combination creates a headache for teams and drivers alike. The long straights might suggest a straightforward slipstream battle, but they do far more than that — they actively exacerbate the track’s grip issues.

The circuit’s design combines two seemingly conflicting elements: it boasts one of the longest straights in F1 at nearly two kilometres, allowing cars to hit speeds of 210mph, comparable to Monza but surrounded by walls.

However, the long straight-line stints are punctuated by a series of tight, twisty corners, creating a unique challenge that demands an optimal set-up compromise.

The corners themselves are often awkwardly spaced, leaving drivers with almost no opportunity to establish a rhythm.

Unlike a flowing purpose-built street circuit such as Monaco or Singapore, where rhythm can be found despite limited grip, Vegas punishes imbalance, turning what looks like a simple track into one of F1’s most complicated tests for teams and drivers.