How Louis Vuitton Is Making Formula 1 Feel Even More Luxurious

Two Formula 1 Paddock Club hosts led me and a few other guests to the main track of the Las Vegas Grand Prix for a tour of all 3.8 miles of the loop. It was 5 p.m. or so in Vegas, so it was just then getting dark, the city’s storied glitz and bombast snapping sharply into focus. The late November weather was perfect for the occasion—just cool enough to stunt with your leather jacket on. Fifteen of us piled onto the runway-like cargo bed of a large truck. The fans already seated in the stands, thrilled to be there hours before the race even begins, waved at us as we wound our way around the track.

Welcome to the F1 Grand Prix Las Vegas, where even the pregame is memorable. Even if you weren’t lucky enough to actually zoom around the track like I was, the sheer excitement was palpable everywhere you turned. You could feel it in the booming volcanic sound of the cars themselves, in the laser focus of the pit crews nursing the vehicles back to health at lightning speed, and, oddly enough, in the sheer abundance of sponsorship activations everywhere you turned.

These days, everyone wants in on Formula 1, which purports to be the world’s fastest-growing sport with a global fanbase of more than 827 million. That includes major companies like Disney, who launched an F1 merch collab in Vegas, and Monster Energy, who served up special driver-branded drinks. But perhaps most visible of all was Louis Vuitton, with the French luxury house announcing a 10-year global partnership with F1 in October 2024.