Everyone says it’s for the European fans, but it was 7am when the race started, I watched it back later. If they would held it on 12am local, it would have been 7pm here in Europe, much better for everyone.
I think the hotels would not like it course their shiny names and fountains wouldnt be as bright during the day…
I believe the issue is, that they wanted it to be a night race. Las Vegas at night is what their brand is and I can see why they would want to orchestrate it like that.
Currently, sundown on LV is between 4 and 5pm local time, making a night race starting at 7pm local time fully viable. But a GP starting at that time would have resulted in the race being run at 4am in most of europe, 3am for the UK.
So i think there is some merrit to the claim a race start at 10pm local time was a deliberate choice to cater to european viewers. It’s much easier to convince someone to maybe wake up an hour earlier on a sunday and watch the race over breakfast than to tell them to get up in the middle of the night.
Personally, I didn’t intend to watch the race early in the morning, I just happened to wake up about 20 minutes after lights-out, so I put it on anyways to follow it to the end.
Somewhere I had read, or a commentator mentioned in passing, that it was held so late so as not to interfere with the regular traffic. That is, they agreed on a time where the fewest people would be on the strip, trying to go spend money somewhere.
So probably marketed for US growth, kind of convenient for Europe, but mostly a drag for everyone …
Everyone says it’s for the European fans, but it was 7am when the race started, I watched it back later. If they would held it on 12am local, it would have been 7pm here in Europe, much better for everyone. I think the hotels would not like it course their shiny names and fountains wouldnt be as bright during the day…
It was pretty good for us Aussie fans, it was at 5pm here
I believe the issue is, that they wanted it to be a night race. Las Vegas at night is what their brand is and I can see why they would want to orchestrate it like that.
Currently, sundown on LV is between 4 and 5pm local time, making a night race starting at 7pm local time fully viable. But a GP starting at that time would have resulted in the race being run at 4am in most of europe, 3am for the UK.
So i think there is some merrit to the claim a race start at 10pm local time was a deliberate choice to cater to european viewers. It’s much easier to convince someone to maybe wake up an hour earlier on a sunday and watch the race over breakfast than to tell them to get up in the middle of the night.
Personally, I didn’t intend to watch the race early in the morning, I just happened to wake up about 20 minutes after lights-out, so I put it on anyways to follow it to the end.
Somewhere I had read, or a commentator mentioned in passing, that it was held so late so as not to interfere with the regular traffic. That is, they agreed on a time where the fewest people would be on the strip, trying to go spend money somewhere.
So probably marketed for US growth, kind of convenient for Europe, but mostly a drag for everyone …