Caesars Palace Grand Prix
The Las Vegas Grand Prix was a car race which was a Formula One World Championship event in 1981 and 1982.
When Watkins Glen went off the schedule after 1980, F1 continued to look west and put an event in Las Vegas for the 1981 campaign. The new race ended the year, whereas Long Beach started it, but it was not popular among the drivers, primarily because of the desert heat. The track was laid out in the parking lot of the Caesar's Palace hotel and was surprisingly well set up for a temporary circuit: wide enough for overtaking, it provided ample run-off areas filled with sand, and had a surface that was as smooth as glass. Its counter-clockwise direction, however, put a tremendous strain on the drivers' necks. When Nelson Piquet clinched his first World Championship by finishing fifth in 1981, it took him fifteen minutes to recover from heat exhaustion after barely making it to the finish. The 1982 race was won by Michele Alboreto in a Tyrrell, but that was the end of Formula One racing in Las Vegas since the races had drawn only tiny crowds.
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Winners of the Las Vegas Grand Prix
Non-Formula One World Championship races are indicated by a pink background.
The CanAm races 1966-68 were officially called Stardust Grand Prix. The Formula 1 and Indycar races 1981-84 were officially called Caesar's Palace Grand Prix.
