‘Fun’ or ‘sketchy’? F1 drivers’ post-race verdicts on Las Vegas track · RaceFans

Was the Las Vegas Strip Circuit a simplistic course designed to encourage DRS passes? Or a surprisingly challenging and thrillingly fast street track?

The venue for the first Las Vegas Grand Prix provoked different responses from the drivers, partly coloured by how successful they were or how well their cars suited the layout.

Before the race many had been concerned the track wouldn’t be very challenging to drive and that despite its many long straights overtaking would prove difficult as the surface lacked grip and the DRS would not be very powerful.

After the grand prix some of those views had changed. Most drivers found overtaking was possible, perhaps partly due to the extension of the DRS zone on the Strip before final practice. Concerns over the lack of grip remained, however, and a few drivers had specific ideas on how to improve the layout.

Here’s what they said.

Max Verstappen

The Red Bull driver was no fan of the event, and described the track layout as too unchallenging before the weekend began. However he felt it was likely to produce good racing, and afterwards attributed that to a few reasons:

I think low deg[radation] on the hard tyre.

A lot of slipstreaming with the long straights and probably a bit of a headwind on the straight as well.

I think the low-speed corners, when you’re following you don’t really lose that much time because they are that slow, the corners.

And then there’s a lot of draft around the track after turn four to five, from turn nine to 12 and then of course all the way from 12 to 14 and then from 16 to turn one is, again, a draft-fest. So that made the racing much better.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Charles Leclerc

The driver who finished second and came close to winning was surprised how much easier it was to overtake than it was in the second practice session, before the DRS zone on the Strip was extended.

I loved the racing. I did not expect to have that much fun in the race because in FP2 I was following, I think, George [Russell] and I really struggled to overtake him.

Then we went down on the downforce and today was much better. I had a lot more fun.

It was a really exciting race and I’m pretty sure it was a really good one to watch. So I’ll make sure I watch that race back.

Sergio Perez

A recurring theme among many drivers was the lack of grip on the track surface. Although the race involved many changes of…