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Agreed. Miami would not be a loss. Enjoyed today's race a lot more than I thought.

Also, fair play to Lance Stroll. I'm usually critical of him, but he drove a great race. Kept out of trouble and had a much better day than Alonso.

Same with Ocon. It was a good job he ignored team orders, on this occasion.

Georges actually admitted the contact with Verstappen was his fault, he wasn't even looking or expecting a move there just before the strip.

The worrying bit though is that he still didn't understand the move, stating that it was useless since he was going to get past back on the next straight anyway. I want to say that's why one of them is a driving genius, and the other is slowly building a reputation of a clumsy serial crasher.
Verstappen basically won a championship with precisely that kind of move, surprising the opponent at an unexpected location prior to the "agreed" overtaking straights. Take a hint and learn

Yeah had George actually seen him coming and left space, he'd have got a terrible run off the corner. No way he'd have got back past

Good race, simple tracks usually deliver. it reminded me of the bahrain outer loop track. Mostly straights, with drs tuned to perfection to keep the field close so they can fight back after being overtaken.

Still would change the race start time so we see more distinction in scenery, it just looked like Singapore or jeddah.

I think the organisers breathed more than one sigh of relief that the race was actually good. It practically saved them, and it would have been difficult to remain somewhat positive if the race had been a snoozer.

I hope they learn something from it. To be specific, I hope they learn that Max is right and the only way of ensuring that this event survives past year 3 is to market it to racing fans who may now be very keen on attending what looks like an exciting race and may be intrigued by the opportunity to dabble in the casinos whilst they are there.

To put it simply, in order for this event to survive (and then prosper), it needs to retain the support of the big casino chains and the local authorities. The big casino chains will remain supportive so long as they are making more money out of the event being held than they would without. This will not happen if the event remains priced and targeted at the rich and\or famous. Those people came this year because the event was novel. Next year, it won't be novel. And by year three, it will be practically old hat as a spectacle.

The organisers wanted it to be Monaco in the Mojave but have not considered the one major difference - Las Vegas is not Monte Carlo. Not even close. None of the history, none of the opulence, none of the glamour. There is virtually nothing high-brow about Las Vegas. This isn't meant as a criticism, as Las Vegas has its niche and its target clientele and it serves them very well and with enormous success. But what it does mean is that the outsiders that came in for the race this year were not interested in sampling everything else Vegas has to offer. There are plenty of videos floating around of empty casino floors from this past weekend. Did the casinos make more money than usual? Some did, others not. This from Atlas' man on the ground loki;



https://forums.autosport.com/topic/2209 ... p=10448249

And as I said earlier, this is year one. Lots of those whales won't be back in year 2 because they aren't racing fans and the spectacle won't hold the same attraction "been there, done that". Not to mention those who will have been put off by the mess on Thursday night. So what happens to the record revenues that the partner casinos made this year? It won't be repeated.

So I hope the organisers understand the value of what they have got - an interesting F1 race - and they focus more on trying to get middle-income race fans into the city so that the event and the city can both make the most of it in the long term.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

This has not been the season for George at all really, he's just proved he's better in qualifying than the races

This was another instance of him turning a huge grid advantage against his team mate into an overall loss, and Lewis had a puncture to boot too....

He's always clumsy in wheel to wheel stuff but this year there's been a decided lack of race pace and a heightened amount of mistakes to go with it

(Now watch him Blitz abu dhabi and ppl will rave about him all off season )

But yeah, the track was cool after all that negativity pre-race. Sorta like Baku without the boring midsection where nothing happens
One of the best new circuit layouts in a long time tbh. Logistics need work but year 1 of anything is a slog, nothing ever goes perfectly (remember "WELL DONE BAKU" lol.....)

_________________
RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

Saudi Arabia's layout was good, and that was introduced less than two years ago exactly (December 2021). I'd argue it's still better than Vegas, because in addition to providing battles, it also has a thrilling technical/fast section that Vegas just doesn't have. Obviously there's no contest for off-track entertainment.

@

RtN: one parameter still missing from that analysis is if the GP will bring more visitors the rest of the year. Formula 1 is not about just the 300,000 that attend, it's also the ~1 million wordlwide viewers per given race, and the ~400 million cumulated viewership per season. Vegas may not need advertisement, but I had honestly forgotten it existed until the GP came back, and the visuals were very appealing. I can see a new crowd of people thinking about a trip there that they wouldn't otherwise, and not necessarily the GP. I couldn't care less about Monaco because it's not my style of trip, but I've been twice (none on F1 race week-end), and that's twice more than if I hadn't been an F1 fan.

Well, that was a fairly intense experience

Now that they played all in and chips were cashed out is time to wrap our stats from the Sin City

.53rd win for Max Verstappen
-equals Sebastian Vettel to rank 3rd all time
-18th victory in one season (extends record)
-33rd victory in the last 42 races
-first time a driver win 3 races in the same country in the same season

.112th win for Red Bull
-20th win in one season (new record - previous was Mercedes in 2016 with 19)

.20th podium finish for Max Verstappen in 2023
-extends his own record from 2021 (percentage record still belongs to M. Schumacher in 2002)

-12th consecutive pole position start for Leclerc that wasn't converted to a victory (rank 2 overall behind Arnoux with 13)

Verstappen has also some records to confirm in the final race that is highest percentage of win in one season, highest percentage of laps in the lead in one season and highest percentage of points scored in the post points discard era (1991-)

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

There may well be something in that, but the main thrust when Liberty were selling the idea of the race to the City and the big casinos was the prospect of providing a big boost to tourism on the weekend of the race. It's why this particular weekend in November was chosen; it's very quiet compared to practically the entire rest of the year (just before Thanksgiving and there are no expos or other big events taking place). So for that reason I believe that the local support for the race will live or die by the amount of money made during the weekend.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.