From dislike to Viva Las Vegas
We all knew from the start that Las Vegas would be no ordinary GP. Come on, it's Vegas. Anything is possible.
And that's exactly what happened (more or less) over the weekend, and being a lover of drama and plot twists, I can't resist giving my word on this eclectic weekend.
We humans love a good comfort zone, after all, if things are working, why should we mess them up? And it's partly right, but it's also quite true that getting better means changing, or at least trying something new.
Liberty Media went into the unknown by spending more than $400 million to try and make a dent in US sports culture, so I bet they had a plan at some point, although over the course of the weekend it seemed that they did not.
So let's start with the bad news, aka. what didn't work at all.
Here I am going to give the first place and the extra point for the fast lap to the tragic situation that they have created with the fans. The aim was to get closer to the US public, not to give them a nine-minute FP1, make them wait for hours for the session to resume and then force them to leave for no good reason. The fans are the heart of any sport and you have to give them a good experience, good memories. We all reserve a place every weekend to feel the passion of the sport on our televisions, so if we can afford to pay for the live version, the minimum we expect from the sport is to welcome us back.
The situation in the grandstands was pathetic and as Max said, a $200 merch voucher is not enough, it is a joke. F1 and Liberty should at least issue an apology and give people the experience they paid for and missed out on for no reason.
Secondly, Carlos and the manhole.
It was an extremely dangerous situation for a driver to be in, and I completely agree that it should have been avoided, especially because this is a sport that does not mind changing regulations throughout the season for safety.
At the same time, I have a feeling that this was also the perfect excuse for F1 fans (mainly European ones) to criticize the GP as a whole. Don't get me wrong, I reiterate that this should have been considered before and not after, but I feel that there was a section of the public desperate for something to go wrong to put the word "threat" in every headline talking about the Grand Prix, and I say this because I think it's not honest to make such a statement before the Sunday race.
Most importantly, it took the focus off the main issue: the penalty.
Keep in mind that F1 and Liberty Media have nothing to do with the FIA. We can criticise the Grand Prix for its layout, but not for a penalty for which the FIA has full responsibility. Ferrari had to pay the full costs ($1.5m), which will go towards the team's budget cap, and also serve a 10-place penalty for Carlos (who could have suffered injury from the incident), that could have changed the whole race outcome for the Reds (and perhaps the constructors' championship, we will see what happens at Yas Marina).
Once again, unacceptable.
These are the actions that cause real damage to the sport, with unstable rules that seem to go with the flow. The FIA should take a look at this for 2024 to give a regulation that is equal and reliable (because at the moment it doesn't even look like it).
I know some people are also putting Lando's crash into the dark side of Vegas, but I'll just put it on the - every track should provide safety conditions no matter what - list. We have seen tracks with far more serious accidents (see Zhou at Silverstone 2021) and we are not questioning whether Silverstone should be erased from the map. Remember Qatar 2023, just a few weeks ago? Well, that was an unsafe track and unsafe conditions from my point of view. Vegas was very far from that.
In summary, there is a lot to improve for 2024, but if each part addresses it for next year (they must), we can have a very good end of season touchpoint.
Now let's get to the good stuff.
Ladies and gentlemen, what a race. One of the most enjoyable of the season (if not the most). After all, Sunday is the most important day of the week, when the real action takes place and the emotions build up. We even sacrifice sleep and get up at 6.30am on our day off to watch a bunch of cars go vroom, because we know it's more than that.
Vegas gave us an amazing landscape, 82 overtakes (2nd on the season after Zandvoort), a great spectacle between Red Bull and Ferrari and the emotion of a sport that has been lacking at times this season.
The sideshow? You can love it or hate it. The Americans love it, so I think it is fair to hold an event in America for the Americans. We have many European historic tracks during the season, so if one is different, why not?
I'll go back to the beginning: in order to grow, you can't be afraid of change, of risk. We love this sport and, for me in particular, I am afraid that something can threaten the emotions, the feelings that I share with it, I feel the need to protect it. But at the end of the day, we all came to this sport in different ways, some many years ago, some just a few months ago. So if someone discovers the joy that is Formula One by seeing Jared Leto at the opening ceremony and then watching the race: hello and welcome on board.
Viva Las Vegas.
