F1 News: Ross Brawn Reveals Key Las Vegas Grand Prix Challenge As Formula One Forgets Major Aspect

A major factor was probably omitted but now, it poses a big challenge ahead.

Ross Brawn, the former managing director of motorsports for Formula 1, has highlighted a crucial element that Formula 1 might have missed in the planning of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. This oversight could pose challenges if the race time temperature decreases beyond the predicted levels.

As Brawn was associated with F1 until 2022, there's a possibility that he was involved in the planning of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Therefore, he is well-positioned to identify any shortcomings that could have been addressed.

Brawn admitted that the cold temperature at night in Las Vegas, at this time of the year was something they hadn't considered when planning the event. Early predictions even suggested that the temperatures might drop to four or five degrees but with Vegas being predominantly hot, the temperature factor might have been overlooked. 

Red Bull Press Image

 Speaking to talkSPORT, he said:

“The one thing we hadn’t considered initially but the tyre company have dealt with is it gets very, very cold at night.

“So when the race is happening, which is Saturday night, it has been known to drop down to three or four degrees.

“So, it can be really quite cold and of course getting the cars to work in those temperatures can be a challenge.

“The tyre companies have done some work to make sure the tyres can cope with that.

“We’re definitely facing some new challenges which we’ve never had before, but I think it’ll be spectacular.”

With the trackside temperature nearing the winter testing mark, Mercedes and trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin added:

“It’ll just depend on exactly how cold it is.

“Because if the track is down in single figures, that’s often a region where you go winter testing.

“You do a run, it’s very difficult for the tyres to either get them switched on, or there may be graining and things. And then sometimes you just wait until it warms up a bit. So actually having to race and qualify in those conditions, it will be interesting.

“You just try and identify the risks with the new circuit, work out what your contingencies will be, whether you need any sort of specific car spec to deal with that. And we’re going through that at the moment.

“But as I said, if it’s at the very cold end of predictions, it’s difficult to know how the tyres are going to work.”