Road Trip! This Is How the New 2024 Alfa Romeo Fared on a Journey to the Las Vegas Grand Prix

• We borrowed an Alfa Romeo Tonale to join the automaker at this year's Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.
• It proved to be well-suited for the drive.
• Most Tonale shoppers won't be affected by the issues I had with the car.

Avoid Barstow breakfast burritos

Back to the road. After clearing the Cajon Pass, I continued on through surprisingly construction-heavy Victorville and into Barstow for a quick pit stop and one of the most disappointing breakfast burritos I've ever eaten. Judging by the dripping orange flour tortilla, I expected a burst of rich chorizo flavor, but there was almost no meat to be found inside. Were the eggs and potatoes fried in heavy grease, with the sausage itself mistakenly left out? Thankfully I was exorcising the demons early, as this and the lack of headroom in the Tonale were the only true lowlights of the trip.

Even though my driving position was slightly compromised, the seats were comfortable and supportive during my journey, and the ride firm but with enough compliance that it didn't feel punishing. The reedy exhaust note only manifested a couple more times — notably while ascending to the Halloran Summit between Baker and the Nevada stateline. Otherwise, it was smooth sailing, especially with the Tonale's adaptive cruise control making easy work of the many miles separating home from Vegas.

An oddly calm race weekend

The relaxed nature of the trip surprisingly didn't abate as I actually made my way into town. I drove up on Saturday morning — the day of the race — and was shocked to not be caught in a snarl of traffic. I didn't know it at the time, but the high prices of the tickets and initially eye-watering flight and hotel rates had kept a lot of prospective vacationers away. The Eataly at Park MGM where I had lunch was characteristically busy, but I checked into the hotel right away and foot traffic around the rest of the property wasn't as hell-clogged as I had prepared for.

That changed a bit as race time drew nearer. Our group walked from Park MGM to the Aria, where Alfa Romeo had brought one of its F1 cars in Las Vegas GP livery, a merch stand (with apparel priced well below what we'd see at the booths at the circuit), a Tonale and a pair of Stelvio and Giulia Quadrifoglios, and a slick Batak training board where guests set their quickest time to complete the light program. From there, we joined the mob heading east across the section of the Strip that constituted the circuit's front straight.

Our seating area at Turn 4 didn't quite give us an angle of Turn 1 — a coveted turn on an unproven track, given the high likelihood of a potential ... incidents ... on the first lap — but we could see the new Sphere with a quick glance to our left, and our position proved to be a primo spot for hearing drivers hammer the throttle onto the back straight.

Unfortunately for our Alfa-aligned crew, the actual race didn't prove to be a smashing success. Both cars finished, but team leader Valtteri Bottas brought up the rear of the pack in 17th, more than half a minute behind Logan Sargeant ahead. Teammate Zhou Guanyu fared only slightly better by finishing in 15th. Of the race itself, there was plenty of excitement throughout — especially as the race wasn't totally dominated by Verstappen — and last-lap fireworks had Leclerc narrowly edge out Perez to finish in second and third, respectively.

I stayed in Vegas one more night, because I thought I-15 would be a parking lot of Sunday with the amount of traffic heading back home (I needn't have worried. The aforementioned dearth of non-F1 visitors meant the highway was green on Google Maps all day). It was on Monday, then, that I headed back to Los Angeles.

So what did I learn in my few days with the new Alfa Romeo Tonale? It's a little too small for me, but if you aren't a giant (or, maybe, if you don't opt for the sunroof), the amount of interior space probably won't be an issue. The powertrain behavior at lower speeds is kind of annoying, but I imagine I'd get used to the feel if I owned this car. Otherwise, the Tonale was a perfect road trip companion, with a compliant ride and interior materials that feel a step above others in the class. Now to find out how it does at our test track ...

Edmunds says

The new 2024 Alfa Romeo Tonale exhibited excellent road trip manners on a journey from Los Angeles to Sin City for the inaugural Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.