For F1, what happens in Vegas ends up in Biggin Hill

BIGGIN HILL, England : What happens in Vegas goes straight to Biggin Hill, as far as Formula One is concerned.

The sport has bet big on its November night race in Nevada and, thousands of miles away on what used to be a World War Two airfield south of London, there is a team ready to put on a show.

The Biggin Hill media and technology centre, first established by former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, is where Formula One's global television feed watched by millions is produced.

On-car and pitlane cameras can be controlled remotely, graphics and radio messages added to images and vast amounts of data transferred around the world in the blink of an eye with the help of broadcast technology partner Tata Communications.

The Nov. 18 race on the famed Las Vegas Strip is the big new addition for this season and in another dimension to previous ones around the Caesar's Palace parking lot in 1981 and 1982.

"There’s a good reason we’re going there and that's to make it look fantastic," Dean Locke, Formula One's director of broadcast and media, told reporters at a Biggin Hill open day last month.

"There’s a lot of pressure to make that look like the race our executives think it should look like, and how we position those cameras.

"I remember looking at the original camera plan and I said no, we’ve got to get higher ... you’ve got to show the extreme nature of what is Vegas. But it is very challenging."

The track will have public access at 13 points while partnership arrangements with trackside hotels and casinos are a complication.

There are no support races to test the technology and Formula One has to be ready to roll in Abu Dhabi for the season-ender days later.

"(Las Vegas) is a city circuit, it has its own advantages. You will have a lot