Formula 1 2023 Season

I am pretty sure during the 2007 Champcar race in Las Vegas they did this picture below and cars went in the air clipping the curb.

F1TV response to all of this is funny....they are pretty, much saying too bad and nobody watches practice anyway  I always wasn't sure if Toto Wolfs verbal attack on the reporter was sarcastic or not. His tone in his voice was confusing. Maybe he thinks Merc can sneak in a victory here if the track falls apart and the red flag/checker it.

Keith Tanner said:

Loads of F1 people walking around town. It's impossible to see the track without a ticket other than one escalator at T12. Driving down the Strip was pretty wild. We're going to see if we can get near the cars tonight just to hear the noise, but we won't be able to see anything.

Instead of going to FP1, we went to the Neon Museum. Two thumbs up. 

Been there a couple of times and it is cool; lots of cool stories behind all those signs.

F1 might have done something good with this race.  I've been following F1 for 15 years or so.  Some years I was more interested, other years I wasn't.  Definitely not the hard core fan that others are, but way more than a casual fan or a fan because of DTS.  I just realized that from last night's FP1 and running in the background today while working, I've watched everything F1 related.  I've watched the weekend warm up, all the press conferences all the way through and FP1 and 2.  I've never done that before. 

If F1 wants more fans in the U.S., maybe this drama will help......

Still hoping quali and the race end up being exciting with some good scraps.

-Rob

I think it's going to be an interesting race. Lots of room for error with the temps and tires, and some potential for passing at T14 and T17 in particular. Plus it's just wild to look at. 

In reply to rob_lewis :

Yeah, I was thinking that too earlier, my wife has been following and was like "man, this weekend is already bad and it's just practice", to which I replied "since when have you ever paid attention to practice?"

Watching FP3 right now, I've got to say that the visuals of the track are pretty amazing.

The view is pretty dang good and lots of action to watch through the turn. 

^nice! 
 

I gotta say visually Vegas at night is a win and I want it to be successful. 
 

Man these temps are interesting. Boost weather so to speak. Intercoolers are working well but tires aren't at max efficiency. Hitting almost 215 mph on the straight and lots of overshooting turns with shortened practices. Hopefully it's a safe one.

Also dammit for the Ferrari qualifying  1-2 and Carlos getting the grid penalty. Fresh engine and fast pace is still a long shot to fight up that far.

Streetwiseguy said:

Ferrari for the win, since their biggest problem is keeping tire temps low enough?

I'm just gonna reiterate this, because I'm on my way to being correct for once in my F1 prognostication.

Doesn't happen very often.  And, there's a better than average chance Charles will stuff it on the first lap.  I have 15 or so hours to enjoy...

I can't remember exactly when it was, but while cars were running, they had a giant ad for Google on the Sphere.  Red, yellow, and blue all at once.  So much for banning those colors...

Max nails it.

"When I was a little kid, it was about the emotion of the sport what I fell in love with and not the show of the sport around it. As a real racer, that shouldn't really matter.

A Formula 1 car on a street circuit doesn't really come alive. It's not that exciting. I think it's more about proper racetracks. When you go to Spa, Monza, these kinds of places, they have a lot of emotion and passion.

Seeing the fans there, it's incredible. When I jump in the car there, I'm fired up. I love driving around these kinds of places."

Verstappen added that F1 was not doing enough to promote the sporting competition and is instead leaning too heavily on "random shows all over the place".

"I understand that fans, they need maybe something to do as well around the track. But I think it's more important that you actually make them understand what we do, as a sport.

"Most of them just come to have a party, drink, see a DJ play or a performance act. I can do that all over the world. I can go to Ibiza and get completely E36 M3faced and have a good time. But that's what happens [at races].

"People, they come, and they become a fan of what? They want to see maybe their favourite artist and have a few drinks with their mates and go out and have a crazy night out. But they don't actually understand what we're doing and what we're putting on the line to perform.

If the sport would put more focus into these kind of things and also explain more what the team is doing throughout the season, what they are achieving, what they're working for, these kinds of things.

I find it way more important to look at that rather than just having all these random shows all over the place. For me, it's not what I'm very passionate about.

I like passion and emotion with these kinds of places. I love Vegas but not to drive in an F1 car."

The visuals are boring to me. Close up shots are of cars either driving down a long straight or barely moving (in F1 context) through a set of tight slow corners surrounded by concrete barriers and catch fencing. Wide shots show tiny cars that aren't identifiable from one another and the strip with a bunch of empty streets, that'll be exciting for an hour and half. 

Hopefully the race delivers something because so far the most exciting thing is the track ruining a drivers weekend and a bunch of fans that spent a lot getting screwed over.

This is the take of someone that sees zero appeal in a place like Las Vegas other than there is an airport there to go more interesting places that aren't the city.

Really really sucks for Sainz,complete B.S. to have no way to apply logic via the ruleset.

 Max gained a row forward and if gets the same starts he's been getting Leclec is getting mugged.

 Hopefully something more then a DRS train race breaks out.

 Well done to Williams,awesome to finally see.

I have mixed feelings about it all.  There is a lot of discussion about the "show" versus the "sport" but you really can't have one without the other.  While I have no doubt that the men and women that make up the teams and operate the tracks and run the sanctioning body are passionate about the sport and "do it for the love", if they couldn't make a living doing it, the overall level of effort would have to decrease.  Even if to a person they all remained in the sport, they'd need to spend time finding ways to support themselves and their families and whatever other job they'd take would reduce the commitment they could make to F1.  The constructors are similarly passionate about the history and the competition but the days are gone where the road car division exists purely to fund the racing team - and, frankly, I'm not sure those days ever really existed to that hyperbolic extent.

When I hear Max talk about needing to make the fans understand about the sport, I bristle a little bit even though I don't completely disagree.  Yes, there will be people that come to the race only because it's an "event" and they want to be seen.  Yes, there are going to be people that are there that don't really know anything about it and don't care.  But if these people are coming out and emptying their wallets into F1/LM/FOM's coffers, then all these people can get paid to do what they - and we! - love and the manufacturers can report back to their boards that this is generating revenue and isn't just some passion project.  That means that we'll be able to have another season next year and the year after that.  If these unpure fans are showing up just because of the "show" and are metaphorically handed a stack of required reading by those of us that are concerned with the "sport", they won't be back.  I liken it to the Super Bowl - I have very little interest in football, and only a passing familiarity with the rules and how the sport works, but I would totally go to the Super Bowl just because it's such an event.  Should I be criticized for showing up because I'm only there for the "show"?  My money spends the same as a "true fan", doesn't it?  How many people would spend $3,500 a seat to attend the Super Bowl if it was pared all the way down so that it was a pure sporting event, akin to a high school game?  No halftime show, no pre-event parties, no commemorative merchandise, just two teams showing up and playing a game.  If I'm spending that kind of money to see the show, who cares if I understand football?

The obverse of the coin, however, is also valid.  For those of us that are interested in racing, we don't want to see a bunch of contrived BS subverting the sport in order to cater to the show.  We're watching it because we know how the rules work and what racing is like and we enjoy watching the best drivers in the fastest cars jockeying for position over tracks that allow the drivers to really explore the limits of their cars.  It seems unfair at some level that those of us that are really into racing and really understand what's going on out there are stuck at home watching on TV while all these people that couldn't give a rip about racing are paying Nissan Versa prices for tickets, locking the "true fans" out of the event. 

As the old saying goes, "racecars run on money".  Yeah, most of what's going on in Vegas right now is about the show and about catering to the crowd that wants to be seen.  Many of the people that are dropping large amounts of money to be there don't understand the sport and, frankly, they really don't want to.  It's an event to be at, that's it.  If a couple races like this happen every year for the show, maybe that can keep funneling money into the teams so that we "true fans" can enjoy the sport in the rest of the races.

As an attendee at the Vegas race I'd like to point out a few things. 1. Max Verstappen doesn't attend F1 races and even as a youth he attended as the son of an F1 driver. His experience isn't the average fan experience. 2. The average fan can't participate in the race day grid walk, isn't going to be seen, and isn't going to be in the race garages. 3. It's tens of thousands of people attending a race. Folks coming to be seen who aren't in exclusive packages, are going to be disappointed. 4. Driving time is less than 10 percent of the time on a race weekend, all the "show" is a courtesy to the fans so they have something to do in between. I booked a room 15 minutes from the track so I could come back and browse GRM in between but not everyone has that luxury. I'll talk more about the rest of the experience when I get home and have a keyboard. 

In reply to dclafleur :

And if you were at Spa you would stay at the track to watch all of the other racing instead of going back to your hotel room.

This race reminds me of the one time I went to watch horse racing (a friend had entered their dog in the Weiner dog race lol). I was a bit shocked as extremely few people were there to actually watch the horses race, it was a side show to the bar, the slot machines and the gambling, when the races were happening very few actually paid attention (aside from the Weiner dog race). Contrast that to any other racing I've seen where it is the main event.

I do love that the sport has exploded with so many new fans and grown over the past few years but it wasn't the lights and casinos of Vegas that did that. It was DTS hitting at the right time where people were stuck at home for Covid followed up by the 2021 season which delivered that drama in the actual sport on the track that did it.

I'm sure a lot of people will have fun and I hope you have an awesome time at the track. I'm probably just bitter with the direction the sport is being pushed in and Vegas is the best representation of that.

In reply to adam525i :

IIRC, at Spa we saw Porsche Cup races, some Mini races, F2 and some other formula race.  In addition to the F1 race.  When we wandered the track, someone was racing the entire time we were there.  It was almost the same at Monza.  I'd rather see multiple races than a concert of people I don't like.  Just my opinion.

My biggest disappointment when I went to COTA was the lack of support races. I think the second year I attended was the first of the big concerts, but I was there for the racing. Vegas can't do support races on that street circuit, it's paralyzing the town badly enough as it is. I'm okay with that because that's a good reason.

I'm at the Vegas race, but not as a ticket holder. Vegas is all about extracting money from people and it's getting annoying. We wanted to just get near the strip last night to hear the cars, but it was going to cost us $95 to park. Had I known, I'd have gone into the area four hours ahead when it was at normal parking prices. Had I need been experiencing the money extraction machine for a few days already, I might have paid it. But we noped out of there and went home.

Still, we've driven as much of the track as you can drive, walked around and seen the preparations and done some people watching, and will watch the race from our timeshare. It's been interesting seeing how a street circuit is built and opened/closed. Given the number of Red Bull shirts walking around, I think Max probably shouldn't disparage an event that fans might want to see. 

I think the visuals are great, and there are some really interesting corners that will hopefully give us some good racing. Turn 17 is fun to watch with that speed. The low traction and cool temps are going to challenge the drivers, and there's good runoff at T12 and T14 so that will minimize safety cars. I think we could have an interesting race - it's sure going to be better than Monaco. Hopefully we'll see more aerial shots during the race, too.

I won't be back to Vegas for this race, the cost to attend as a ticket holder does not work for me and there's no way to experience it otherwise. Vegas itself doesn't hold much appeal to me. I'm glad I'm checking it out this weekend to see it and put it all in perspective, but I don't need to do that again. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

There is a reason why we have dollar, quarter and nickel slots.........no coin left behind. LOL

I worked in gaming for 20 years and I still get see the fascination with gambling.

In reply to Tom1200 :

First time I went to Vegas, I bet about $20 at a roulette wheel with $2 bets. Lost every single spin, and that cured me of any concept of being able to beat the house. Best $20 I ever could have spent in terms of long term financial decisions :)

In reply to Keith Tanner :

The machines will payback 95% of the money put into them...........problem is that's calculated over about 32,000 handle pulls.

So I'm watching the pre-race and Brundle nailed my thoughts; how do they not have Force Majuere written into the rules.

In reply to Tom1200 :

I know the math, but the games are designed to make you forget the math :) The fact that I lost at least 10 roulette spins in a row (on a game that should have about a 47% chance of winning a spin) just helped me avoid that pitfall.

Tom1200 said:

So I'm watching the pre-race and Brundle nailed my thoughts; how do they not have Force Majuere written into the rules.

Even if they did, it's not clear that it would help.  Giving Sainz a new engine without penalty isn't fair to his competitors -- Norris is only 3 points ahead of him in the championship and that's easily a small enough gap that the 15-20 extra hp that a new engine gives him could make the difference.  So does Norris get a free engine change too?  What about the rest of the grid?

Waiving the penalty is not an easy fix for the problem even if the rules allowed it.

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

It would also involve judgment and interpretation on the part of the race director, which hasn't worked so well in the past few years :) Black and white works better in the rules than grey.