The most anticipated race of the 2023 F1 season has arrived and it is providing for a rather odd schedule that is not viewer-friendly for motorsports fans in the United States. F1 makes its debut in Las Vegas this weekend with the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix running along the Strip.
The organizing body elected to schedule all the events at night, which makes for a late night in Las Vegas and an extremely late night in the Eastern and Central time zones. It’s also going to make for an especially cold race, which the organizers did not really consider. Evenings in the desert can get cold, and apparently nobody took a look at a weather website before setting up the schedule.
The session gets going on Thursday with an 8:30 p.m. PT practice run. Friday will feature practice first thing at midnight and then again later that night at 8:30 p.m. Qualifying will take place at midnight first thing on Saturday and the race will run at 10 p.m. local time. That benefits European viewers, but it is going to make life rough for folks in the Central and Eastern parts of the United States.
All events will broadcast on ESPN or ESPN, and will be available for live stream at WatchESPN. If you don’t have an ESPN subscription to access WatchESPN, you can try out YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, AT&T TV Now, FuboTV, or Sling TV to stream the weekend’s events.
2023 points champ Max Verstappen is once again the favorite to win at DraftKings Sportsbook. He enters the practice round with -400 odds to win and is followed by Lando Norris at +800. Norris is on a roll recently and is coming off a second-place finish at the Brazil Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton follows at +1600 and Charles Leclerc is +1800.
Here’s the complete schedule for this weekend. All times below are Eastern Time.
Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend schedule
Thursday, November 16
11:30 p.m. — Practice 1 — ESPN2, WatchESPN
Friday, November 17
3:00 a.m. — Practice 2 — ESPN, WatchESPN
11:30 p.m. — Practice 3 — ESPNU, WatchESPN
Saturday, November 18
3:00 a.m. — Qualifying— ESPN, WatchESPN
Sunday, November 19
1:00 a.m. — Las Vegas Grand Prix race — ESPN, WatchESPN