CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT THIS OUTFIT AND HAIR COMBO!?!?

Via carlossainz's instagram.

HE'S IN BAHAMAS!!!?

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

(source)

This track is such a bad fucking idea.

Lando did nothing wrong and his car just spun off into the abyss. Fernando turned normally and just spun.

There’s no grip?? That’s incredibly dangerous.

Just because you can put a “street circuit” somewhere doesn’t mean you should.

I'm gonna tell my grandchildren these are Meredith and Derek

ACTUALLY SOBBING WHY DID THEY THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA

POOR CHECO 😭

are they gonna sing now?

Where is your hot take on Vegas and the manhole cover I need to know.

Hoo boy! Okay, so I'm going to put this all behind a cut for spoilers sake, but I have a lot of feelings about the Las Vegas GP.

Cons:

Let's talk about the fucking manhole cover. This isn't the first street race Formula 1 has ever done. I don't understand how such an oversight happened. Actually, no, I do know. They were so focused on milking Las Vegas for money that they didn't actually pay attention to the details on the track. Not only did they not secure the manhole covers, they also didn't anticipate that it would be cold in Las Vegas at midnight. They went from passing out from heat exhaustion in Qatar to worrying about needing hand warmers in their gloves and wondering if their tires would come up to temperature during qualifying in Las Vegas. Mind blowing. Imagine being the president of the FIA from Saudi Arabia which is mostly desert and not knowing that it would be cold if you decided to run qualifying at midnight. What was the issue with the drains anyway? F1 cars are designed to create downforce through aerodynamics which basically helps the car stay on the ground and not go flying when they take these corners. Las Vegas is made up of slow speed corners, but 'slow speeds' is relative. They are still going insanely fast. Most of the cars ran really low downforce so they could maximize speed down the Strip, but they still produce a ton. This creates sort of like a suction between the chassis of the car and the ground. The vacuum between the bottom of the car and the tarmac was so powerful that it ripped the drain out of the road and right into the bottom of Sainz's car. This was 100% preventable. After two instances with Ocon and Sainz's car, they had to repair 140 drains which took 5 hours! Insane. AND THEN they gave Sainz a 10 place grid penalty because he need to replace his battery outside of his allotted amount for the season after it got damaged by the drain cover. The stewards claimed that because there was no rule anticipating this issue, they were not allowed to make exceptions.

But this wasn't the only thing wrong with the Las Vegas GP. Prior to the event, they jacked ticket prices up from 2,000 to 20,000 a ticket. They also blocked out the windows of hotel rooms, casinos, and bridges so people couldn't spectate for free (not that the hotels were inexpensive either). They anticipated a huge turnout and ended up having to drop prices rapidly as the date approached because they didn't sell the way they thought they would. Kudos to the fans, though, because I hear a bunch of fans tore down the barriers and privacy screens. Love it! But imagine paying 10k for a ticket. Then you sit outside at 1:30 in the morning waiting for FP2 to start and get kicked out of the grandstands because of the repairs, and then they don't actually let you watch FP2, you know, that thing you spend thousands of dollars on to see. Formula 1 is being sued by fans, btw. Daniel Ricciardo was the most excited for Las Vegas. He claims he manifested it, and it was so exciting to know that he was going to be able to race (despite being in the draggiest car on the grid and obviously not doing well in the race), and he was pleading with F1 to not treat Las Vegas like an event just for the 1%. I really hope F1 learned something from this experience because it was extremely exclusionary. Some US citizens did the math and found out it was cheaper to fly to Monza than it was to attend Las Vegas.

Another big con was the road surface. Formula 1's calendar runs a lot longer than any other racing series, but on earlier race weekends, multiple events are going on at the same time, like F2, F3, Formula Academy, Moto GP... The road surface is usually prepared before the weekend starts, and then as all the events happen, the cars lay rubber down on the track which increases grip. Las Vegas happened after all the other series were finished, so there weren't any other cars improving the grip of the race track, which in turn made the course extremely slippery. You pair that with the cold temperatures, and it made the track unsafe to drive on. In addition, Hamilton's car spilled oil on the track, and the marshalls did not do a good enough job to clean up the spill, which caused a huge spinout between multiple drivers on Turn 1 of the race, ruining so many drivers' day.

The last con was just the time of day the event took place on, but I don't actually know how they would solve this problem. All the session took place in the middle of the night. Like I said, FP2 was supposed to start at 1:30 AM. Vegas is really the only street course where they couldn't shut down traffic for the whole weekend because the Strip is vital to the economy of the city, but again, it was really cold during all the sessions, and it fucked with the drivers and crews' sleep schedules. Oof. I don't watch the races live, so it didn't really affect me, and it probably benefited everyone in Europe who typically has to get up at 4 in the morning for any other North American event, but it was exhausting for everyone working the race.

BUT THERE WERE SOME PROS! I know I just complained a lot, but Vegas did exceed expectations in some way.

There were a lot of overtaking and the really cold track temperatures did shake things up quite a bit. Ferrari, who has struggled with overheating their tires all year, was able to keep their tires in the right temperature pocket, giving them a big advantage. Despite Red Bull winning again, there was still a big fight that it made it interesting to watch instead of Max sailing 30+ seconds ahead of everyone else. Charles had real potential to win the race until the safety car that gave Red Bull a free pit stop. Qualifying had the weirdest line up as lower performing teams excelled, like Haas. There was also a lot of worry that because the track was so narrow, there wouldn't be a lot of opportunity for overtaking, but there were at least two good spots (including the DRS zone), and we saw way more battles than anticipated.

And well, that's really the only pro. It's a big pro, though, and gives me hope for future Las Vegas GPs. It has the potential to be an excellent race, an excellent weekend, and an excellent fan experience if they can fix the very large and preventable issues from this weekend.

Max literally refusing to move to 1st to let Charles stand there

Max laughing it off and not caring

Max being grumpy and warning Checo and Carlos even when it's not his spot that it's wrong

absolute HUSBAND behaviour 🫠

Max Verstappen & Charles Leclerc | media pen | 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix 🎥: SkySports F1 (Nov 15, 2023)

Pushing Nico out of the way istg, WHY CAN'T THAT BE ME!?!?!?

There gotta be a Lestappen going on in the background.

I think Las Vegas will be the perfect time to use that one meme I made (poorly) again :

Uh, fucking WOW Lando basically just went ice skating on the track with his car. That’s scary as hell.

straight to the nightclub 🤭

spent the whole day rushing though this ough

Podium Carpoolin'.