(Image via www.formula1.com)
Volunteer Writer: Akshit Bagga
Email: abagga@umassd.edu
After months of preparation, planning, and elevated excitement in motorsports, Formula 1 has finally arrived at the world’s entertainment capital. The globe’s best drivers and fastest cars vroomed in the streets of Las Vegas for a brisk weekend on November 16th, 2023.
Racing to Las Vegas returned after four long decades when F1 announced it last year in 2022, and from thereon, it has been in conversation.
The street circuit layout took over parts of the famous Las Vegas Strip. There were traffic disruptions that the people in Vegas faced while the roads were being resurfaced to handle speed transitions from about 50 mph to over 300 kmph.
Sheets were installed on walk bridges around the track to avoid crowding while the beautiful machines passed beneath them. Businesses, including casinos, were occupied to build pit stops for teams.
The track is around 6.2 kilometers/3.8 miles, where cars run for fifty laps to put on a show for the spectacular streets of Las Vegas. The track has seventeen turns winding through iconic locations like Caesars Palace, Bellagio, and The Venetian.
Since F1 already crowned the 2023 season champion, Max Verstappen, and the Red Bull racing team claimed the victory at the Constructors Championship, the event used a different method to draw in fans – the city’s glamor. The glitzy new event in the state of Nevada and the brand new circuit that came with it were certainly factors in fans’ attendance.
Fans had many questions going into the race: what would the pace be like? Who would be second place in the constructor’s championship? And most importantly, who would be the first driver to win the LVGP?
The competition weekend answered it all.
Let’s examine how the event flared and whether it met fan expectations.
It all started with the first practice session (FP1) when the cars began to roll. Teams looked up to their drivers to learn more about the track and their car’s performance on the 6.2 km stretch.
It was only eight minutes into the first session when one of the Ferrari drivers, Carlos Sainz, bumped into a loose drain cover on the track and damaged his car, forcing the first red flag of the Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend.
An hour-long FP1 session was forced to be canceled by the stewards because of driver safety and required track inspections. The track drama delayed the FP2 session, and it started in the early hours at 2:30 AM Pacific Time and was extended to 90 minutes (instead of the usual 60 minutes).
Verstappen got straight to business and set the fastest track time to 1m 38.209s. He was quickly overthrown when Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc improved on lap timings and topped the charts with 1m 35.265s, getting half a second clear of his second-placed Ferrari counterpart Sainz. Sainz was getting ready to brace a 10-place grid penalty due to the incident in FP1, which forced him to change his power unit.
Third place in the FP2 session was taken by Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, who was around a second slower than Leclerc. The session ended after 90 minutes, giving all twenty drivers and ten teams an idea of what to expect from the track.
They brought us the FP3 session on Friday evening, where Mercedes propelled speeds. Their driver, George Russell, topped the session, setting the charts to 1m 34.093s. He was followed by Australian driver Oscar Piastri in the McLaren, grabbing second place. It was a surprise result for third place when the American driver Logan Sargeant cruised in the blue Williams car, half a second clear of Max Verstappen.
The session was red-flagged and ended when William’s Alex Albon hit the barriers in the final minutes, losing a tire in the collision.
Next was the qualifying session, where Leclerc converted his practice session pace to pole position on the grid. In the other Ferrari, Sainz was the second fastest in the Q3 session but had to start ten places down due to the penalty imposed on him.
Max Verstappen and George Russell took the third and fourth spots, respectively. French driver Pierre Gasly took the fifth place. Williams took the next two positions, followed by Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo), Kevin Magnussen (Haas), and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin).
It all came to a head on Saturday night when the stage was set amid the 315,000 people in attendance, with many more watching behind their screens. The cars lined up after the formation lap, and at 10 PM Pacific Time, the five red lights went off. Away they went, as all vehicles accelerated to the first turn.
Coming out of the first turn, Max Verstappen took the lead from Charles Leclerc. There was chaos at the back of the field when Fernando Alonso’s car spun around the track. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez tagged the rear of Valtteri Bottas, and other drivers went around to avoid collisions. While the debris on the track called for a yellow flag, it was only seconds before the lights went green again, and racing continued.
McLaren’s Lando Norris, who demonstrated great pace in the second half of the F1 2023 season, had a short-lived Vegas Grand Prix, strangely crashed out in the third lap, and went off the road in turn 12 into the barriers, further retiring.
Leclerc overtook Verstappen again in lap 16 when Verstappen pitted to change and get new hard tires. The action continued when Max Verstappen and George Russell made contact in the 25th lap, damaging the floor of the Mercedes car. This incident also resulted in a five-second penalty to George Russell.
The green light was given at the end of lap 28, and thereon, we had an almost clean race, avoiding any significant incidents. Verstappen, Perez, and Leclerc shuffled between first, where ultimately, Verstappen, with his pace and speed, overtook the pack.
It was on lap 45 that Mercedes’s Lewis Hamilton showed a phenomenal overtake down the turns on Gasly and Piastri for ninth place. Leclerc made a late nail-biting move during the last lap of the race on Sergio Perez for second place on the podium and went on to compete until the final turn.
Finally, Justin Bieber waved the checkered flag as Max Verstappen whizzed through, followed by Leclerc and Perez. Fourth place was George Russell, but he was pushed to eighth place, courtesy of the five-second penalty.
Esteban Ocon was brilliant in the Alpine, coming fifth, followed by Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Carlos Sainz, and Lewis Hamilton. Fernando Alonso took ninth place, and the final point of the Las Vegas Grand Prix was taken by Oscar Piastri, who also secured the point for the fastest lap.
The Las Vegas GP stepped up to deliver adrenaline and excitement-filled racing. Track and arrangement evolution continues to be a talking factor, but it is how every Grand Prix starts.
It was a show on Saturday night in Vegas among the bright and blinking lights, where Red Bull also sealed 1-2 in the driver’s championship in years.
F1 departed for Abu Dhabi, where they flew for the season’s last race. F1 will return to the United States for their Miami edition in the first week of May 2024.