Formula 1 moves Las Vegas Grand Prix to earlier start time

The Las Vegas Grand Prix will be aired at a more palatable start time for U.S. viewers this season, with the race start time brought forward by two hours from last year.

The 2023 and 2024 Las Vegas races both started at 1 a.m. ET/10 p.m. PT, but the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix will start at 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT.

It means F1 fans on the East Coast won’t have to stay up into the middle of the night to see the winner take the checkered flag and watch the podium celebrations.

F1 races have a fixed time limit of two hours, with races stopping at the end of the next full lap after the two-hour time limit has expired.

The only exception is if the race has been red-flagged. In that case, the total time limit is extended to three hours, with the entire on-track race time not exceeding two hours.

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The time change means that all night races on the 2025 F1 calendar will start at 8 p.m. local time, and may also have been partly motivated by the drop in viewing figures for last year’s race, with the Grand Prix averaging 905,000 viewers on ESPN, a 30 percent decrease on the 2023 race.

The earlier start time may help bump those figures northwards again

But for every ying, there’s a yang, and the time change could create a potential knock-on effect for other live sports, including live college football, on ESPN that day.

It also means that European fans (including this writer…) will now have to get up in the early hours of the morning to catch the build-up to lights out in Vegas.

For those fans, F1 commentator David Croft may have to adjust his trademark catchphrase to "Lights out, coffee on, and away we go!"

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