The engines are heading to the strip, not the suburbs. The 2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix brings neon, cold asphalt and a title fight that is starting to tighten rather than fade.
Weekend Breakdown: Las Vegas GP 2025 Schedule & Timings
Las Vegas keeps the night-race identity. All F1 and F1A sessions run after dark on a street circuit laid around the casinos and hotels.
Circuit Guide: Las Vegas Strip Circuit
The Las Vegas Strip Circuit, home of Las Vegas GP 2025, is one of the longest laps of the year at 6.201 km, with 17 corners and two DRS zones. Cars snake through a technical opening sector before being fired onto the Strip. There the field hits more than 340 km/h in qualifying trim, braking hard into a tight left at the end of the hotel canyon. Long straights bookend a middle sector of tight ninety-degree corners and big traction zones.
It is a low-downforce, low-grip challenge. Bumps, paint lines and manhole covers all sit in the braking zones. Drivers complain about cold tyres on out-laps. Engineers complain about cooling and brake wear. Fans enjoy slipstream battles all the way down Las Vegas Boulevard.
Track position matters, but not as much as tyre temperature and confidence under the neon glare.
Race lap records by each series:
- F1 – 1:34.876 – Lando Norris (McLaren) – 2024
- F1A – not driven here before
Weather Forecast & Track Conditions – Las Vegas GP 2025
Friday — November 20
Expect clear, cold desert conditions settling in after sunset. Temperatures fall quickly from 17–19°C in the early evening to 11–13°C by late night. Humidity stays low, and winds remain light, though occasional gusts funnel between the Strip’s high-rise corridors. Track temperature can drop more than 15°C across the sessions, resetting grip every run.
F1 impact:
FP1 should begin on a very cold track, with tyre warm-up the main issue. Mediums will struggle to reach temperature on the out-lap, and Hard tyres may take two push laps to stabilize. FP2 sees only a small improvement, but the surface remains slick, with drivers relying heavily on brake energy to heat the rubber. Expect wide performance swings as cars oscillate between optimal grip and micro-graining.
F1 Academy impact:
F1A Practice and Qualifying run earlier and on a less rubbered-in track. Grip will feel patchy, especially on braking zones that remain cool due to low sun. Tyre prep is critical; a single mistake on the out-lap can ruin an entire quali attempt. Expect large lap-time spreads as drivers adapt to the changing surface.
Saturday — November 21
Conditions stay dry and stable, with evening temperatures between 14–16°C at session start and cooling again toward 12°C. No rain risk. Winds remain mild, but the long straights amplify crosswind effects. Track evolution rises sharply thanks to Friday’s rubbering-in.
F1 impact
FP3 should run on a cleaner and faster surface, but qualifying is still defined by rapid tyre cooling. Out-lap traffic becomes critical. Drivers forced to slow too much for traffic or pits may lose the tyre window entirely before the final sector. Brake warm-up must be aggressive, yet controlled, to avoid glazing. Expect big deltas between banker laps and push laps.
F1 Academy impact
Race 1 takes place on a cool but improving surface. Early laps may see cars sliding with low rear grip. Tyres come alive after two to three laps but drop off again if pushed too hard. Safety-car risk rises at Turns 1 and 5, where cold fronts cause snap understeer.
Sunday — November 22
Race night is set to be cold, clear and calm, with air temperatures falling from 13–15°C at lights-out to 10–12°C by the final laps. The asphalt will sit among the coldest of the season, causing dramatic balance changes over long runs. No rain, but visibility can drop slightly due to heat haze from hotels and cool desert air mixing over the straights.
F1 impact
Race conditions start grippy but deteriorate as tyre surface temperature collapses on long stints. Safety-car probability increases because cold tyres amplify braking errors at Turns 1, 5 and 14. Drivers must protect tyre energy on out-laps and warm the fronts aggressively after each restart. Those unable to maintain the window risk sudden front-axle washout.
F1 Academy impact
F1A Race 2 sees quick grip shifts between warm-up and mid-race phases. Drivers must avoid overheating the tyres early, or they will suffer severe drop-off later. Restarts are high-risk; rear instability increases when tyres cool behind the Safety Car. Those managing temperature best will gain large time swings in the final laps.
Tyres, Strategy & Pit Windows
Formula 1 Tyre Strategy: C3–C5 and the Cold-Track Puzzle
Pirelli brings the C3, C4 and C5 compounds, the soft range in its palette, just as in 2024. and 2023.
In theory, that opens the door for an aggressive, multi-stop race. In practice, the limiting factor is always tyre warm-up. Teams will chase surface temperature rather than outright wear. A slow out-lap can destroy the next two laps of performance.
Expect most front-runners to target a two-stop strategy. An early Safety Car could tempt a brave one-stop attempt on the harder compounds. However, the long pit-lane and high chance of interruptions usually reward flexibility more than rigid planning.
Undercuts should be powerful once the track rubbers in. Overcuts can still work if a driver gets clear air and nails the out-lap on a heated set of tyres. This is a strategy race held at sprint race speeds.
F1 tyre options, Photo Credit: Alpine F1 Team
F1 Academy Tyre Approach: One Slick, One Wet, No Excuses
In F1 Academy, tyre selection remains deliberately simple: one slick compound for all dry running and one grooved wet tyre for rain or standing-water conditions. There are no compound choices, no alternative hardness levels, and no offset strategies, every driver works with the exact same tyre set.
What to watch
F1: Title Fight and Team Battles
Title Picture: Norris vs Piastri vs Verstappen on the Strip
Heading into the Las Vegas GP 2025, Lando Norris has the scoreboard. The McLaren driver leaves Brazil with a 24-point cushion over Oscar Piastri, while Max Verstappen lurks further back after his pit-lane-to-podium charge at Interlagos.
Las Vegas will reward confidence on the brakes and commitment over bumps. That usually fits Verstappen. Yet McLaren’s recent form on low-drag layouts gives Norris and Piastri every reason to believe they can control the weekend again.
The key dynamic is intra-team. Norris now owns the momentum and the strategic priority. Piastri must attack without tripping over his own weekends, after costly contact in both Brazil races. One more swing in either direction could define how Qatar and Abu Dhabi are played.
But also keep in mind that Mercedes had 1-2 at this track last year.
Mercedes vs Ferrari vs Red Bull
Mercedes arrives with real optimism. Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s run of podiums has dragged the team back into the conversation as the closest threat to McLaren, especially on low-grip circuits where his karting-honed car control shines.
Ferrari, by contrast, needs a clean weekend. Pressure from chairman John Elkann after São Paulo has made their margin for error even thinner. A strong Las Vegas result is the easiest way to lower the volume around Maranello.
Red Bull sits in an odd place. Verstappen still pulls miracles out of difficult cars. Yet the team’s qualifying weaknesses on bumpy street circuits are well known. If Las Vegas exposes those again, they risk sliding into a supporting role rather than a leading one in the final triple-header.
Midfield Mayhem
Behind the headline acts, the midfield is stacked with street-circuit specialists. Racing Bulls, Haas and Sauber have all shown strong one-lap form this year. Williams tends to enjoy low-drag layouts as well.
Expect a traffic jam around Q2. A single yellow flag could flip the entire order. In the race, DRS trains will form along the Strip. The teams that dare to offset strategy will be the ones that escape.
Also Williams and Racing Bulls prepared new liveries for Las Vegas GP 2025.
F1 Academy: Title Showdown and Graduates’ Farewell
Title Showdown Under the Las Vegas Lights
While F1 locks in its own storylines, F1 Academy comes to Las Vegas GP 2025 for its season finale with the championship still in play. The calendar brings the all-female series across three continents, with Vegas acting as the showpiece seventh round.
Doriane Pin and Maya Weug lead the standings after a season that has stretched from Shanghai to Montreal and Singapore. The points gap is tight enough that every race lap in Nevada matters. Qualifying will be vital. So will avoiding the concrete walls that line the Strip.
The series has grown into a full F1-branded ladder, with all ten F1 teams backing entries and Liberty Media positioning it as a central part of the sport’s future pathway. Las Vegas is the proof-of-concept round: prime TV slots, a packed F1 crowd and a layout that suits slipstream racing.
Wild Cards, Storylines and a Neon Backdrop
F1 Academy also adds local flavour. Payton Westcott, a 16-year-old American, joins the grid as the Visit Las Vegas Wild Card, racing in a special Strip-themed livery supported by the city’s tourism board.
Her appearance sits alongside other late changes. Aiva Anagnostiadis misses the finale, with Rachel Robertson stepping into the TAG Heuer-branded entry. The paddock will also keep one eye on Netflix cameras, with the planned F1 Academy docuseries expected to shine extra light on a field already used to tight margins.
For the drivers, Las Vegas is both a race and an audition. Every overtake happens in front of team bosses, junior program heads and a global streaming audience.
Farewell Lap: F1 Academy’s 2025 Graduates
This weekend under the Vegas lights will be more than just another final round of the season for the junior grid of Formula 1 Academy. It will mark a transition, a symbolic “walk of honour” for the drivers who came into the series as rookies, raced for two full seasons, and now stand on the threshold of the next chapter.
Maya Weug, the first woman admitted to the Ferrari Driver Academy, brought precision, pace and calm-head presence. She claimed victories, built a part of her story and now at Las Vegas is poised to close the F1 Academy chapter and open the next door.
Doriane Pin, backed by Mercedes‑AMG F1 Team, entered the series with a rich racing CV outside single-seaters and left behind a ledger full of podiums, battle-craft and momentum. She arrives in Nevada not just chasing a title but chasing her next opportunity.
Chloe Chambers, the American driver with a Red Bull junior badge, rounds off her second year as part of a quietly ambitious graduating class. Her quiet consistency, flashes of speed and the regional story arc bring home how F1 Academy has reached younger and more global talent.
Aurélia Nobels backed by Ferrari, Lia Block with her upward arc and podiums won, Tina Hausmann anchoring Swiss/Prema links and Chloe Chong carrying her British-Canadian dual heritage: all of them arrive in Las Vegas knowing this is their final F1 Academy weekend under the “two-season” cap. The rule is clear: the ladder is for stepping up, not staying put.
As they fire away under the neon night on the Strip, their race-cars will not only carry lap-times, they’ll carry ambition, closing chapters and starting new ones. For one last time in this series, they drive the same road. After this weekend, the roads diverge.
Feature Image Credit: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team