Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool
Less than 2 days after the chequered flag fell on the Las Vegas Grand Prix where Max Verstappen took his 4th F1 title, a driver has been killed on the circuit in a shooting.
Las Vegas Grand Prix circuit
The Las Vegas Strip Circuit, as it’s officially named, runs on a number of public roads around the centre of Las Vegas. The track uses a section of Las Vegas Boulevard from Sands Avenue to East Harmon Avenue, goes up Koval Lane and along Westchester Drive around The Sphere.
Those streets are usually heaving with traffic. But for the Grand Prix weekend, and the days leading up to it, they have to be closed to the public to make way for the F1 cars.
From Wednesday 20th November to Sunday 24th November the streets were closed for a total of 39 hours, finally re-opening to the public for good at 4am on Sunday morning. But heavy construction delays were still in effect as workers started dismantling the infrastructure of the Las Vegas circuit.
Driver killed
Las Vegas Metrolpolitan Police confirmed that at around 4:04pm local time on Monday 25th November, just one day after the Las Vegas Grand Prix finished, an Uber driver was shot and killed in a road-rage incident on part of the Las Vegas Grand Prix circuit.
The incident took place near the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sands Avenue, near the Palazzo and Treasure Island hotels.
Just hours before, that very location had been Turn 12 on the Las Vegas Strip circuit. Turn 12 is a tight left-hander, usually an intersection when the road’s open, which drivers take at around 60mph before heading down The Strip at full throttle to reach well over 200mph at the other end.
According to Las Vegas police, that’s the location where a man was shot in the neck and subsequently pronounced dead on the scene. The victim was an Uber driver who had two passengers in the car with him.
🚨 Breaking: LVMPD is investigating a deadly road rage shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. 🚔 @News3LV pic.twitter.com/nhni1n9WWR
— George Acosta (@georgeacostatv) November 26, 2024
Witnesses and police reported that both the suspect and the victim had been engaged in road rage that began within a quarter mile of the scene of the shooting. When both drivers came to a stop near the Palazzo and Treasure Island hotels, the victim exited his car and banged on the suspect’s vehicle. That’s when the supect drew a weapon and shot the Uber driver, before fleeing the scene.
The suspect was later tracked down and arrested without incident, and is now in custody.
Traffic cams
A traffic camera just outside Treasure Island showed the police activity on the Strip in the aftermath of the shooting.
But only a few hours prior, that exact same camera had shown the F1 cars racing down the Strip.
One fan on X found this as a way to watch the action for free.
F1 TV is too mainstream. I’m watching on the CCTV traffic cams.https://t.co/tZifOPYnI0 pic.twitter.com/w4uip46MLV
— Chris Aurelio (@GTRainYT) November 23, 2024
Las Vegas GP disruption
Ever since the Las Vegas Grand Prix was announced and first held in 2023, locals were less than pleased with the disruption that the massive event would bring to their city.
Whilst hotel and casino bosses profit from the extra high-end tourism that it brings to their huge businesses, small-business owners and local workers suffer.
In 2023 over 35,000 local casino and hotel workers threatened to boycott the Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend due to the endless disruption caused to their daily commutes by the circuit construction work.
One owner of a gas station that sits along the track between turns 4 and 5 says he lost $3.4 million in 2023 when the F1 first came to town, and that 2024 would have been even worse.
Four lawsuits have been filed against Clark County, where the Las Vegas GP is held, by small business owners seeking damages for the negative financial impact the race has on their businesses. And even when the race is finished, the disruption isn’t over.
Earlier on Monday before the shooting took place, the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada warned road users that there would be “heavy construction delays” in the same area where the shooting later happened. These construction delays were caused by workers dismantling the F1 circuit.
#FASTALERT Heavy construction delays
— RTC Southern Nevada (@RTCSNV) November 25, 2024
SB Las Vegas Blvd Spring Mountain Rd to Harmon Ave single lane pic.twitter.com/3GtjtQ9SmT
At that time, the incredibly busy southbound Las Vegas Boulevard was reduced from four lanes to just one lane from Spring Mountain Road to Harmon Avenue.
Las Vegas Municpal Police Department Homicide Lieutenant Jason Johansson recognised that the construction work was frustrating and asked for patience as it took place.
He said “The biggest message to carry forward to me is, look there is a lot of construction going on in the valley right now.
“We are starting to see an increase slightly in some of these road rage incident type of shootings, a couple of murders. It wasn’t worth somebody’s life.”
