Caesar's Palace Grand Prix Course

When the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Corporation was financially unable to secure their date on the 1981 calendar, FISA replaced it with another American race at a new venue: Las Vegas, Nevada.

Many Europeans were appalled when they heard that much of the circuit was laid out on a parking lot (or car park, as they say in Britain) next to the Caesar's Palace hotel!

Reactions to the circuit varied widely. The course consisted of 14 turns, mostly of the tight variety, and naturally, it was lined with concrete barriers throughout its 2.268-mile length. The tight counter-clockwise curves, following one after the other, put tremendous strain on the drivers, but the surface was as smooth as could be. The organizers, aided by Long Beach's Chris Pook, had taken great care to make the track wide enough to allow overtaking, and run-off areas were provided where needed. Alas, no one could do much about the desert heat, and nearly every driver who finished a race here did so with some degree of heat exhaustion.

Always last on the season calendar, the Las Vegas race will be remembered for deciding a World Driver's Championship in each of its events. In 1982, it was the site of Mario Andretti's last Formula One race and was the only race ever to mark the third stop on the F1 calendar in one country in the same season.