Caesars Palace Grand Prix

The Caesars Palace Grand Prix was a car race which was a Formula One World Championship event in 1981 and 1982. Nissan/Datsun was a presenting sponsor of both races.

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. It has also been described as one of the worst circuits Formula One has ever visited. The track was laid out in the parking lot of the Caesars 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.

The 1984 CART race was run on a modified version of the circuit, with straightaways connecting turns 1 and 6 and turns 6 and 10, which produced a 1.125 mile flat oval.

There have been speculative rumours of a return of a Las Vegas Grand Prix to the F1 calendar. In fact, the 1995 Indianapolis 500 program advertised a possible street circuit along The Strip, but it never materialized. After the 2005 U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis, rumors again circulated, however, it is one of many circuit linked with future races, and a strict limit on the number of races in a year means Las Vegas is not a favourite for a race.

Winners of the Caesars Palace Grand Prix
A pink background indicates an event which was not part of the Formula One World Championship.