F1 Las Vegas GP setup costs expected to rise as Liberty Media aims for 'the most premium sporting event of 2023'

F1 owner Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei has admitted that setting up the infrastructure for the F1 Las Vegas GP has been an expensive affair as they are trying to make the race weekend "the most premium sporting event of the year."

The race in Vegas has been in the making for quite some years and is finally going to be held at the end of the 2023 season. It is expected to be the biggest spectacle the sport has ever seen in terms of its sheer size and grandeur. However, the cost of setting up has skyrocketed from the initial projections that the sport and Liberty Media had made.

Unbothered by this fact, Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei said in a call with Wall Street analysts, as per RacingNews365:

"The Las Vegas team is pulling together an event of unprecedented complexity and scale, it will be the largest, and our argument will be the most premium sporting event of 2023. It's a view that's a testament to our Super Bowl aspirations for all our Grand Prix events.

"I am pleased to say preparations are running on schedule. And despite inflationary cost pressures, we expect no change in revenue and profitability assumptions that we laid out previously."

Liberty Media CFO Brian Wendling added in the same call:

"Our paddock building is now 85% complete, we expect capex related to the Vegas race including both the paddock building structure and track-related Capex to be close to 400 million, of which approximately 155 million was incurred in the first half of the year."

F1 Las Vegas GP CEO provides an update on the challenges faced thus far

F1 Las Vegas GP CEO Renee Wilm, who was present as well in the same call, confessed to facing several challenges while preparing for the race such as wiring and cable issues in the area.

She said:

"We've entered into a couple of challenges as we've uncovered asphalt cables under the ground that needed to be addressed. There have been wires overhead that have needed to be moved. A lot of this was driven by the request and requirements of local stakeholders.

"As we began this process of preparing the track for actual usage we've also encountered additional requests from the local stakeholders such as casino properties around enhanced security around opening/closing the track."

It Is indeed turning out to be the biggest challenge that F1 has taken so far in terms of taking over a street and a city as iconic as Las Vegas.