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

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.

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.

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Fans splurge while F1 in town

It didn’t put the fans off spending though, with the average Formula 1 visitor spending $4,128, boosting tax coffers by an estimated $64 million.

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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