The Grand Prix Is Three Nights. Its Road Calendar Runs Past Christmas.

If you cut through Koval Lane to get to Flamingo Road, when do you get your normal route back? The race lasts three nights, Thursday through Saturday, November 19 to 21. The official preliminary transportation calendar starts the track build on August 31 and ends the teardown on December 23. One lane restriction by the Bellagio lasts until December 29. That's almost four months of work around three nights of racing.

The busiest corner of that calendar is Flamingo and Koval. It closed completely for five days in October so crews could put in the temporary vehicle bridge. The preliminary dismantle schedule closes it completely again for five days in December to take the bridge out. The second closure ends on Friday, December 18, a week before Christmas.

The Season in Five Phases

The organizers' published plan is labeled preliminary, and it can change. As of late October, here's how it lays out.

Most of the build happens at night. Track lighting and barrier work on Harmon, Koval and Sands closes two lanes from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Lighting work on Las Vegas Boulevard closes three lanes from midnight to 9 a.m. Two kinds of closure break that overnight pattern: the bridges and the pit building. Both shut a road around the clock.

October Showed What a Bridge Week Costs

The Flamingo/Koval intersection closed from 9 p.m. Sunday, October 11, to 9 p.m. Friday, October 16. KSNV News 3 reported that businesses stayed open and reachable during the bridge work, though some sidewalks were partly closed for the pedestrian bridge. FOX5 reported that the intersection normally carries more than 50,000 vehicles a day, and organizers warned that weather could change the bridge schedule.

Five days is shorter than it used to be. In 2025, the Review-Journal reported that the bridge build had dropped to five days from seven in 2024 and ten in 2023. The 2026 install also took five days. So the improvement seen in earlier years held steady this year but didn't keep shrinking. The overall season didn't get shorter either. The 2025 plan put the first road impacts on September 8. The 2026 preliminary calendar starts on August 31.

For detours around that closure, the Review-Journal suggested Tropicana Avenue or Sands Avenue for getting east and west. Those same streets will matter again in December.

The Weeks Between Now and Race Night

With the bridge in place, the work moves back to night shifts and narrower lanes. These are the dates still ahead as this post goes up:

• Las Vegas Boulevard, overnight: Three lanes close from midnight to 9 a.m. on weekdays through Friday, October 30.
• Bellagio frontage: Two southbound lanes on Las Vegas Boulevard and the sidewalk by the Bellagio Fountain Club construction site stay restricted through November 9.
• Koval at the pit building: Closed November 14 through 25, from the weekend before the race to the Wednesday after it.
• Sands Avenue: As of mid-October, FOX5 listed eastbound lanes closed around the clock between Las Vegas Boulevard and the Palazzo garage, and westbound lanes closed between Manhattan Street and the garage.

That Sands item needs a second look before you count on it. Sands Avenue is one of the two detours suggested for Flamingo/Koval, and part of it is already narrowed near the Palazzo. Tropicana is the cleaner of the two east-west options right now.

Race week has its own set of documents. The organizers' transportation hub has a "Race Week: Daily Updates" section covering 12 a.m. November 16 to 6 a.m. November 23, with PDFs for vehicle circulation, pedestrian circulation and affected transit stops. Look at those before you book a dinner near the circuit on November 19, 20 or 21. Clark County's "Circuit Impacts" page still shows the 2025 race.

After the Flag, the October Closure Comes Back

Once the cars leave, the work keeps going. On the preliminary dismantle schedule, crews take out the Flamingo vehicle bridge December 13 to 18. Koval/Flamingo closes around the clock from 9 p.m. Sunday, December 13, to 9 p.m. Friday, December 18. A temporary signal goes up at the intersection, and sidewalks close while the bridge comes down. The same plan has track-lighting removal on Koval December 14 to 18. Two lanes close from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., Sunday through Friday, with one lane open each way and every lane back during the day.

It's the October closure in reverse: the same intersection, the same five days, starting and ending at 9 p.m. Only the season is different. In mid-December, people are running holiday errands, flying out of Harry Reid International, and taking visiting family out to dinner.

The Strip side has its own long tail. Two southbound lanes of Las Vegas Boulevard at Bellagio stay closed around the clock from November 23 to December 24. Then one lane stays closed December 26 to 29. If you'd planned to drive past the Bellagio fountains with guests over the holidays, that stretch will be narrowed through most of the week after Christmas.

The Bus Riders' Version of the Same Calendar

The closures land differently for anyone on the RTC. While the October bridge went in, RTC Southern Nevada detoured Routes 119 and 202 and closed 18 stops. In RTC's October 19 update, Route 202 and the Flamingo stops were back in service. Seven Route 119 stops on Koval were still closed around the clock. Southbound Deuce stops are closed from midnight to 9 a.m. on weekdays through October 30. Stop 3590 by the Bellagio and Cosmopolitan is closed around the clock through November 9.

The October bridge install took Flamingo stops out of service, so expect the December removal to affect the Koval and Flamingo routes too. RTC's alerts page is the place to confirm which stops are affected once that week gets close.

Who Feels the Long Build

The weeks of construction matter most to the people who work beside the circuit. In September, FOX5 spoke with a souvenir shop manager near Flamingo and Koval. He said the construction had made it harder for people to walk to the store, pushed up rideshare costs and cut down on customers. He also said things had gotten better as timelines shortened. He asked for reimbursement, limits on construction, or other walkways that wouldn't block storefronts. The shop sits on the same corner that closes again December 13 to 18. The organizers have said businesses stay reachable during bridge work, so a December stop at shops near that corner is still possible on foot.

The organizers have also done some things for the community during the build. They held a free "100 Days to Race Day Celebration" at Grand Prix Plaza on August 15, with a car show by Las Vegas Car Meets. Their "$100k for 100 Days" program gives $20,000 each to five Southern Nevada nonprofits working in STEM education, youth development and sustainability. Grand Prix Sundays at the F1 HUB Lounge, which offered giveaways for Clark County residents, ran in September and early October. In 2025, Nevada residents got a 24-hour head start on Flamingo General Admission tickets. No resident-only ticket window was announced for 2026, and the $50 single-day and three-day Flamingo Zone tickets are now listed as sold out.

Keeping the Dates Current

Every date above comes from a schedule the organizers call preliminary, and weather has already been named as something that could move bridge work. The official Las Vegas Grand Prix transportation page posts weekly schedule updates. You can also get text alerts by texting F1LV to 31996. Signing up now means the December 13 closure notice reaches you before you plan holiday errands around Koval.

I've been planning drives around this circuit in east-side neighborhoods for several seasons now. If the Grand Prix calendar affects a showing, a move date or a closing you have coming up this fall, I'm glad to help you work out timing that avoids the closures. Amy Canale is available whenever you're ready. Let's Connect.