The race on the Las Vegas street circuit, set along the iconic Nevada Strip, takes place on Saturday night, November 23. A victory for Max Verstappen would secure his fourth consecutive Formula 1 title with two races still to go.

As Verstappen heads to Las Vegas with the goal of clinching his championship, he will race on a track that his Red Bull team has already simulated an astounding eight billion times.

“We run four billion simulations before we even get to the track,” explained Jack Harington, Red Bull’s partnerships lead, who collaborates with Oracle, the team’s title sponsor and software partner. “After the first two practice sessions, we take the data from FP1 and FP2 and incorporate it into our simulations, running them another four billion times.”

The key figure here is billion, not million—an important point considering Verstappen’s commanding 62-point lead over McLaren’s Lando Norris.

“There’s an old saying that you sometimes have to stick your hand out to check if it’s raining in the pitlane, but there are always variables that might catch you off guard,” said Harington. “The more simulations you run, the more scenarios you can anticipate and the better prepared you’ll be to react efficiently.”

Red Bull leverages Oracle’s cloud infrastructure to run these simulations, refining their strategy and ensuring they are ready for any situation that may arise during the race.