Barely Avoiding a Black Eye
In motorsports, they say first-time events always have a few kinks to work out. We’ve certainly seen that regarding the NTT IndyCar Series. The Music City Grand Prix comes to mind. The first two years of the event saw weather combined with a way-too-tight circuit, play havoc with the event. The race itself produced multiple cautions in the first two years, forcing Marshall Pruett of Racer.com to call the first-year event a sh**show.
While I acknowledged the track had design flaws, I thought Pruett’s term was a little harsh, but it stuck. Several of the nine cautions and two red-flags were brought on by over-zealous and impatient driving. It was a similar race in Year Two, with similar bone-headed moves by drivers. Finally in year three, the drivers figured it out and the racing was actually good. Unfortunately the track is undergoing a major redesign for next year’s season-finale, so who knows what we will get in 2024?
If Nashville was a sh**show for the first two years, what would you call what happened in Formula One’s Inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix (LVGP) this past weekend? That first weekend in Nashville, we didn’t know we were destined to watch a crash-fest until the full grid started racing in anger on Sunday afternoon. Formula One’s weekend turned into a debacle just nine minutes into the first practice late Thursday night.
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz hit a malfunctioned water valve cover on the track, damaging his car in the first nine minutes of practice, bringing the late night practice to a halt for an inspection and repairs. Paying customers were sent home at 1:30 am for “safety concern”. Practice Two did not get underway until 2:30 am and ran until 4:00 am. Fans felt cheated and were irate that they got to see only nine minutes of track activity for the first of their three-day ticket.
For legal reasons, F1 stopped short of an apology. Instead, they gave those that had purchased Thursday-only tickets a $200 credit in the LVGP gift shop. Those that had purchased three-day tickets (the vast majority) were out of luck and got nothing. Those that bought tickets months ago paid thousands for their three-day tickets. In the days leading up to the event, ticket prices dropped dramatically to about $1500 for a three-day pass or about $200 for Thursday or Friday tickets. Race Day tickets were down to under $1000 late last week.
You already had irate fans who saw the value of their tickets decrease in value in the months leading up to last weekend. When only the single-day ticket-holders were given the $200 shop-credit (which, according the Nathan Brown of The Indianapolis Star, amounted to a hat and a T-Shirt); fans filed a class-action suit on Friday against the LVGP. Stay tuned on that.
There was more controversy on Friday, as it was announced that Sainz would receive the same penalty as if he had carelessly driven his Ferrari into a concrete barrier. The fact that the penalty would not be waved, due to the fault of the track and not the driver, infuriated many.
In the weeks leading up to the event, it was hard to find any F1 driver with anything good to say about the over-the top Las Vegas style influencing everything surrounding the event, or even the 3.85-mile track itself – which had been labeled a “flying pig”. Max Verstappen was especially critical, claiming that the event was more about being an extravaganza than it was about the sport itself.
Personally, I thought the 10:00 pm local time start was absurd, but it allowed European fans to watch it live as a Sunday morning race. Plus, I think it was a nod to the night life in Vegas.
With all of the negativity leading up to the event, including backlash from several affected businesses and the locals; Formula One did not need the circus that was created Thursday night/Friday morning.
I would not classify myself as a Formula One fan anymore. I followed the sport from the days when Ayrton Senna drove for McLaren with Marlboro livery powered by Honda; all though the days when they were racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As close as I ever got to an actual F1 race was in September of 2002, when I drove my kids from Nashville to Indianapolis to watch F1 qualifying. Those were the days when they still ran the naturally-aspirated V10 engines. Hearing that high-pitched whine reverberate through those grandstands on the main straightaway, was ear-piercing and beautiful at the same time.
But after the Michelin tire debacle at IMS in the 2005 race, I sort of lost interest. By 2010, I had quit following F1 altogether. I don’t think I watched a single F1 race for over a decade. I am guilty of being re-acquainted with F1, when we binge-watched the first couple of seasons of Drive to Survive. Nowadays, we watch a handful of races each year. I think we have watched about three races this season. I recorded Saturday night’s race, but have not watched it yet.
From all accounts, the race was actually competitive. Yes, Verstappen won his eighteenth race of the season, but he had to pass Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc twice; once at the start of the race, and again late in the race – overcoming a penalty and damage to his car. From what I have read, it was a hard-fought battle between Vertappen, Leclerc and Sergio Perez that produced what some are calling the most competitive F1 race of the season. Having not seen the race yet, and few races of the season, I cannot confirm or argue that point.
Not being a fan of F1, some might suspect I was gloating over all of the controversy and mishaps leading up to the race on Saturday night/Sunday morning. Quite the contrary!
I sense a decline in interest in all motorsports in this country. With young people seeing cars as a necessary evil, and electrification becoming more and more popular, I think anything that brings focus to any form of more traditional motorsports is a good thing. While Formula One has gained in popularity in the US, I think IndyCar benefits from that popularity, and doesn’t suffer.
Most casual fans cannot tell the difference between a F1 car and an Indy car. If F1 does well in the US, I think that helps IndyCar. Some will disagree with that logic, but I truly believe that regarding in any open-wheel racing – all boats rise, when one does well.
That’s why I was cringing and not gloating when the F1 weekend got off on the wrong foot, by giving the local fans only nine minutes of practice on Thursday. Irate racing fans are not always good for the sport. Where IndyCar can make hay is by showing fans that you can watch a similar product in-person, with tickets that are actually affordable to the average family.
Fortunately, the actual race saved the weekend from being a total sh**show. Hopefully, the Las Vegas weekend was spared from giving motorsports a black eye.
George Phillips
Oilpressure 
November 20, 2023 at 4:46 am
Having been an ardent F1 fan since about 1965 I can only say Thank God for Indycar otherwise my open wheel viewing would probably have lapsed.
November 20, 2023 at 7:28 am
I really enjoyed F1 in the ’90s and early 2000s. Probably checked out about the same time you did George, and I’ve never really looked back. The cars are amazing and the extravagance is eye-catching, but it may be the most boring form of racing on the planet. If not for the potential of making lots of money, I can’t fathom why Michael Andretti wants in on that crap so badly.
November 20, 2023 at 8:05 am
F1 is a rich person’s sport. Yes, some of the actual racing can be good, at least until team orders tell the faster team mate to slow down. It all seems a bit snobbish to me. I do watch a few races each year, but always seem to come away disappointed 90% of the time. When the ticket prices alone prevent potential fans from attending, that’s not a good thing. At least with Indycar, I can afford the tickets.
November 20, 2023 at 9:03 am
I was not planning to take any schadenfreude from the mess that happened on day 1, but I can’t blame those who would given the spectacle that Formula 1 was billing the Las Vegas event to be. So I am glad the race itself went well.
Las Vegas isn’t really my scene (well, I do love an arcade… but I can drive just 7 miles to one that’s branded with the Andretti name and has photos of Indycars all over the walls), so the novelty of seeing cars race down the strip isn’t quite the scene for me that it perhaps ought to be. I’d probably say the coolest racing in Las Vegas happens north of town, at the dirt track.
While it is obviously not dependent on locals for attendance, it will be interesting to see how the F1 race holds people’s interest as Las Vegas becomes increasingly crowded with professional sports. There was a time when NASCAR was the most prominent sport in Las Vegas, as LVMS was new, boxing’s stars were fading, and UNLV basketball fell back to earth. Mike Smith’s Stockcartoons ran in the newspaper every week. This time continued through NASCAR’s struggles during the last decade even… up until the last few years, as Las Vegas now has the NHL, the NFL, visits from the NBA, and will soon have MLB. It’s a lot to go up against.
November 20, 2023 at 12:09 pm
George, you and your followers might be interested in CNBC’s documentry “The Business of Formula 1”. It was shown on cable TV, but you can get all the segments on the CNBC website. I won’t provide an opinion, but found it very interesting.
November 20, 2023 at 12:18 pm
I haven’t watched an F1 race on TV anymore since that Austrian GP when Felipe Massa and Walter Bottas started on the 2nd row, only to fall back throughout the race whilst I fell asleep.
I have noticed little about F1 since Kamui Kobayashi lost his Sauber drive and got hired by the Toyota team from WEC who have their base within a bike ride’s distance of my place. Besides record winning numbers of championships and one driver /team combination dominating at a time, only the two scary crashes of Grosjean at Bahrain and Zhou at Silverstone have made the news. And then, there is the hilarious fake marina at Miami Gardens with its not-so-soft walls from the 1st year there. The way you describe the Las Vegas GP, it seems like a similar vanity project of Liberty Media.
November 21, 2023 at 10:27 am
The Federalist had a good article on this. There were 20-30 manhole covers. They could not be welded down due to Nevada law, so they had to concrete all of these in place once they discovered the problem (how did they miss this issue when they put the track together?). They kicked out the spectators from the practice session at 1:30 since the security staff had to “clock out” due to local labor laws. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff dismissed the complaints as largely irrelevant. He said “nobody watches” practice sessions and “stuff happens.”
Just another racing league that doesn’t care about their fans, and is in fact ripping on its own fan base. We live in interesting times.
November 21, 2023 at 1:00 pm
I marshaled the Vegas event, about 25-50 yards downstream of Turn 12 exit, and outside of the water valve cover incident(which was related to the cement failing around the shroud) the weekend went off well. I heard all about the fans that were in the stands Thursday night but the fans that I talked to all seemed to have a great time throughout the weekend. My only suggestion would be to change up the session times to sunset and 10pm local time for each day.
November 21, 2023 at 9:10 pm
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